


where is my bright future

by Steamcraft



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: 1940s, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Argent Warning, Banshee Lydia Martin, Banshee Powers, Beta!Scott, Blood and Gore, Coma Patient, Everyone Has Issues, Gen, Graphic Description of Original Character Suicide, Holocaust Recovery, Hurt Derek, Hurt Stiles, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Interracial Coupling in the 1940s, Kidnapping, Malnutrition, Mention of Electroconvulsion Therapy, Mute Stiles, OCD, Pack Cuddles, Panic Attacks, Period-Typical Racism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Racism, Racist Language, Recovery, Scenting, Sheriff Stilinski Finds Out About Werewolves, Soldier!Derek, Stiles is Derek's Anchor, Therapy, Triggers, World War II, alpha!Derek, come watch me butcher the polish language. I'm sorry, fanfiction helps me go places in life - obviously not into a history teaching career, full wolf transformation, if it seems far-fetched it probably really is, not even close to historically accurate in matters of:, polish!stiles, prisoners of war, segregation of african americans and women during war times, slowest build probably ever built
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2015-02-09
Packaged: 2017-12-30 13:15:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 14
Words: 21,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1019051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Steamcraft/pseuds/Steamcraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>au: Derek and Stiles meet at a German camp.</p><p> </p><p>--</p><p> </p><p>“My name…” The boy trails, then grimaces. “Stiles Stilinski.”</p><p>Derek’s eyebrows rise. “Stiles. Nickname?”</p><p>Stiles nods. “You English, how is it… Butcher.”</p><p>That surprises a laugh out of him. Stiles looks startled at the sound, heart racing, before he tentatively smiles.</p><p>“You laugh, but its true.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tata - dad  
> Nie... proszę... - no... please...  
> Nie, czeka - no, wait (stop, don't)  
> Wilkołak - werewolf  
> Czerwony Kapturek - Little Red Riding Hood

 

 

They drag in a corpse.

Its Derek's initial thought before he hears the faint heartbeat. The body smells of sickness and pain, and two men are dragging them by their arms. They throw the body at Derek’s feet.

Derek is in shackles, cuffed at the wrists and ankles with silver because these ignorant people believe in fairytales. Breaking the chains would only cause trouble for him, and he doesn’t have a plan of escape.

He slowly looks from the boy (bruised, bone thin, pale, long limbed) to the officers dressed in green uniform. They’re looking at him expectantly. He raises an eyebrow and speaks, hoarse from lack of water.

“What, do you think I’ll eat him? Tear him up? _Bite_ him?”

He’s a monster, but not of that caliber.

The men standing in front of him are the real monsters.

Derek gathers moisture in his mouth and spits.

One of them quietly says something in German, and the other brandishes his service pistol and shoots Derek through the shoulder. Derek roars with the pain. He can feel himself trying to heal, but its sluggish from being so weak; it may take hours. It may even leave a scar.

“ _Unmensch_ ,” the first hisses.

Derek, sweating, gives a rough, toothy grin and spits again.

 

 

The boy doesn’t rouse until late in the evening. 

Derek watches his fingers twitch in his awakening, hears his heartbeat rabbit to life. He can smell the boy’s building panic when he lifts his head.

“ _Tata_ ,” the boy whispers with a thick Polish accent. Derek can tell it hurts him, but the boy pushes himself up. “ _Tata_?”

He looks behind him and flinches at the sight of Derek, scrambling backwards. His eyes (sunken, dull, amber) are wide with fright and he begins to tremble violently.

“ _Nie… proszę…_ ”

Derek wonders how he must look to the boy. When they captured him two weeks ago, they left him in his service uniform. They didn’t shave his head or beard. He wonders if the boy sees an enemy soldier and not a prisoner of war.

First, he holds out his hands slowly. The boy withdraws further, but then peers warily at the sound of clinking chains. Derek jostles his ankle binds, as well.

“Do you speak English?” he asks, voice rough. Every four days they bring water. He hopes they bring enough for the boy tomorrow.

The boy lifts his hand, pinches his thumb and forefinger together. He looks less afraid now, more cautious.

“Enough.” Then adds, “Learning in school.”

His voice is deeper than Derek imagined it to be.

“My name is Derek Hale.”

“My name…” The boy trails, then grimaces. “Stiles Stilinski.”

Derek’s eyebrows rise. “Stiles. Nickname?”

Stiles nods. “You English, how is it… Butcher.”

That surprises a laugh out of him. Stiles looks startled at the sound, heart racing, before he tentatively smiles.

“You laugh, but its true.”

“Try me.”

Stiles tells him his real name and Derek tries to repeat it. He fails at the second syllable, but Stiles grins a little wider.

It fades when Derek asks, “How long have you been here?”

“Two years.”

“How old are you, Stiles?”

Stiles is growing uncomfortable. He fidgets and draws his knees to his chest. “I am eighteen now. _Proszę_ \-- Please stop questioning me. There is no nice history about me being here.” Derek holds his hands up again, inclining his head.

"Of course, sorry.”

Stiles scrutinizes him a moment longer before nodding. He stays quiet and, eventually, dozes off in restless slumber. Derek stays awake.

 

 

They bring unclean water and molded bread in the morning, but at the same time they unlock Derek’s binds and herd him out of the shed with guns pressed against his back.

“ _Nie, czekaj_!” He hears Stiles protest.

There’s a gunshot.

Derek tenses and stops walking, head turned towards their little shelter. The soldiers press their pistols harder. “ _Gehen_!”

He’s forced to continue.

Everywhere smells like pain and blood here. Its been soaked into the ground, its in the prisoners’ ragged clothes. He can’t smell the difference between old and new blood when everything mixes together.

He hopes that the rabbiting heart is still beating when he returns.

 

 

Today: electrocution.

Generals are there with the scientists, charting and examining his beta and alpha forms from different percentages of watts.

They interrogate him, but Derek doesn’t respond. He doesn’t know how they expect him to when his voice is destroyed from his screaming.

They turn up the power and Derek loses consciousness after two minutes of it.

 

 

There’s a low murmur that gradually becomes louder as Derek pushes through the fog. He can’t make sense of the sounds right now, but after a moment he recognises it as Polish.

He groans as he tries to push himself up, and the talking stops.

“Derek?” Stiles’ voice is right above him, hands on his shoulder. He shakes him. “Derek?”

Derek opens his eyes. He’s looking down the length of Stiles’ legs. They’re speckled with freckles and moles.

And bruises and lacerations, blood and dirt.

The hands shake him harder. “Derek, wake. You need water.”

Derek nods in understanding but doesn’t move to get up. Instead, he cups a palm over a scabbed, knobbly knee. He hears the gasp when Derek begins taking his pain, then all of a sudden Derek is being shoved off Stiles’ lap while the boy scrambles away. Derek sees the limp.

“ _Co_ \-- Wh-what are you?” Stiles stammers.

Derek looks from Stiles face and searches for the tin cup of water. Its just out of his reach. He looks back at Stiles. Thankfully Stiles seems to understand and he warily moves to push the cup closer as Derek finally sits up.

He drinks two mouthfuls, enough to wet his sore and parched throat and satisfy his waned thirst for now.

“When sleeping, your burns…”

Derek lifts his shirt and the electrical wounds are just pink on his ribs.

“How long has it been?”

“Near two days. What are you?”

He’s definitely getting weaker. All of his energy is being wasted on keeping himself healed, but soon he won’t even be able to do that much.

Derek uses the only word he’s learned in multiple languages. “ _Wilkołak_.”

“ _Wilk_ \-- Are you mental?”

“Do you have any other explanation,” Derek challenges.

Stiles narrows his eyes. “No, but that’s a story. My life certainly isn’t fairytale.”

“Grimm sounds about right,” Derek says.

The boy laughs harshly. “ _Czerwony Kapturek_?”

"What?"

"Sorry. Little Red Riding Hood."

Derek raises an eyebrow. "I wasn't referencing to myself."

Stiles grins. "I was." He edges closer. "For a _wilkołak_ you are...normal." Derek is being scrutinized and he leans away, wary of the fascinated expression blooming on Stiles' face. His eyes brighten, and Derek thinks he's catching a glimpse of Stiles' former self.

"Can I see more?"

Derek's eyes flash red and his fangs lengthen. "I'm not entertainment, Stiles."

Stiles doesn't even smell of fear. He smiles sheepishly. "Sorry, I'm curious by nature. Can I ask?" When Derek gives a relenting nod, Stiles is quiet for a moment.

Then, "Why don't you escape?"

Derek frowns. "I'm not here by  _choice_ ," he growls. "I was ambushed. I was shot in the side, expected to bleed out, but taken captive when I healed.

"There are an estimate of 100,000 people here sick and brittle. I can't exactly walk out, Stiles; I'm not to my full capacity."

Stiles says nothing. He lays his head on his crossed arms over his knees. Derek feels more at a loss than he ever had being here.

"I'm not Superman."

 

 

Derek smells the gas far away, putrid and rotten. The screams are worse. A couple gunshots. He looks up and sees Stiles curled in on himself, asleep. He's shivering.

Derek unlocks his binds by carefully using his claws to pick the keyholes. He'd tested it when he first arrived. Pulling his shirt over his head, he blankets Stiles with it.

It doesn't keep him from shivering completely, but it may remind the boy he has dignity, even if the camp has stripped it away a long time ago.

Derek snaps on the binds and tries to ignore the screams.

 

 

Stiles' sickness is eating him. He's not being properly fed, clothed, or cleaned. Sometimes he vomits what he's eaten, sometimes he gives his share to Derek.

Soldiers come and take him away several days a week for many hours at a time. Stiles comes back bloody, bruised, and lifeless to the point where Derek has to strain his hearing to hear the boy's heartbeat.

Derek takes as much of the pain as he can, until he's sweating from exertion. When he comes to, Stiles says thanks.

There are many days where Stiles doesn't speak at all.

 

 

"My dad and I were hiding Jews."

"My squadrant had a double-crosser."

Its how Derek was captured.

"My best friend was shot in front of me."

"My home town was under a blitz attack."

Its how Derek became alpha.

"There's no one left at home."

"...same."

He has no pack waiting for him if he survives the war.

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was inspired by a commenter to continue the storyline. What I've planned however, is to leave with a nasty-yet-manageable cliffhanger in case I have no more inspiration coming to me. Thankfully to some I do have an inkling of what the next part will be like.

Somehow, and despite all odds, Derek makes it out alive. Everything is blurry to him and he doesn't even question the hands that grab him. Initially he thinks the German soldiers were taking him again for torturing experimentation; he has no strength to fight, no strength to heal. In his mind he says, _Finally. This will be it_. There is only peace running through Derek's head in the sound of his younger sister's laughter.

He only wishes he could take Stiles with him. The boy had been in a coma since that morning, body (skin, bones, too weak to even attempt crawling) shutting down.

"Kill me and him," Derek wants to say. "Kill us right here. Don't separate me from him." It doesn't come out though, not whispered and not said at all.

"Can you hear me?" the man with hands that don't hurt asks. "Soldier, do you understand English?" Derek's head lolls back so he can attempt to look at the man. He's dark skinned, American accent.

"Let us die," Derek finally finds his voice. His hands clench on the filthy shirt he gave Stiles. The boy is hardly breathing.

"Not on my watch, Alpha," the man says. Derek blinks blearily at him, trying to process the way the American's eyes flash and reveal his secret. "We can help you."

Derek grips on to Stiles tighter. "Then get him... take him."

He watches the American soldier assess Stiles, sees the way he grimaces and makes a mental decision. He reaches for his radio.

"Beta Two, this is Beta One. Two POWs need medical attention immediately. One Alpha, one human. Over."

" _This is Beta Two, copy that. I'm on my way_."

  
  


When Derek comes to, he's hooked to IVs in a hospital. The black man is there, sitting in a chair with a thick manila folder in his lap.

"Coventry Alpha, Captain Derek Hale," he says. Derek stares at him dully.

"I'm Vernon Boyd. I'm from New York, where you currently are," he says. "How are you feeling?"

"Like hell," he rasps. "The war?"

"Over, the Allies won. Hitler is speculated to be dead after we blitzed a month ago."

"'Speculated.''"

Boyd shrugs. "No one could identify a body."

Derek closes his eyes again. "We won, huh. Go away and let me sleep then."

  
  


The next time he wakes Derek is alone. He's feeling much stronger; whatever the meds and treatment aren't doing, his healing abilities are taking over.

He lays there for two hours before he calls for a nurse to remove the IVs and catheter. She says he shouldn't be moving yet, is confused that he's even awake, but Derek says he's leaving AMA. He has places to be.

The first stop is a barber shop to cut his overgrown beard and hair to something manageable. The second is to a werewolf-friendly bar (priorities, okay?) where Boyd and two other werewolves corner him at.

"What do you want," Derek asks around a thick barbeque steak sandwich. Its almost too heavy and rich for his stomach. His discharge records writes he had been fed a liquid diet; he has to eat slow or else he feels sick.

The bread is so fresh and it makes him remember. It makes him remember he survived.

Boyd gestures to a blonde woman (who Derek vaguely remembers in Germany as Beta Two) and man. "This is Erica Reyes and Isaac Lahey. May we sit with you?"

"I'm not looking for a pack," Derek warns. He stops eating, though motions for them to sit.

"I won't lie; I was going to ask sooner or later," Boyd says as he takes the stool next to him.

"What happened to your Alpha?"

Reyes, on the other side of Derek, answers, "Our makeshift Alpha was KIA. We all were bitten by rogues."

Derek rolls his eyes. "No wonder you three don't know proper etiquette."

"Erica and I haven't even said anything," Lahey protests from the other side of Reyes.

"You're here with him looking for a pack," Derek says. "Actions are louder than words."

Lahey looks miffed, examining his nails, fur ruffled. "Not really, no."

"Then what ever could you want," he asks again, feeling his patience waning quickly.

"I'm a doctor," Lahey says vaguely. Reyes smirks.

Derek narrows his eyes at him suspiciously. "Are you going to advise me back to the hospital? Save your breath."

"He's not _your_ doctor," Reyes teases. Her smirk widens to show perfect teeth. Its mocking. "Are you still lost, sweetheart? Or should I remind you that I'm the medic that saved your asses?"

Derek's about to comment on her crass language until her plural snags in his brain and he freezes. Reyes' eyes twinkle and Lahey is smiling.

"I think he gets it," Boyd says next to him, then orders wolfsbane ale from the tap.

  
  


The good news is Stiles is alive, stabilised and labs normal. The bad news is he's still in the same coma when Derek last saw him a couple months ago. He lies in the bed with more hair than Derek has seen before and it makes him look younger than eighteen.

Stiles is much paler without the dirt and grime, but he's still sickly thin. His closed eyes are sunken in, bandages hugging countable ribs, a nasogastric tube hanging loosely from his face.

His heartbeat is the strongest Derek's ever heard it, yet he smells of drugs and death.

Derek touches his arm and the pain takes immediately. He reels back in shock.

"He's attached to morphine," Lahey says where he's propped at the door. "I do ten minute sessions with him." Derek looks at him with surprise, and Lahey shrugs. "I have two ICU patients that take opium and are in constant pain; this one is much easier."

"That's quite a long time, still."

Lahey shrugs again. "So, what's his name? The nurses have a pool running."

_You English, how is it... Butcher._

That brings a barely noticeable smile to his lips.

_You laugh, but its true._

"Stiles Stilinski." Derek draws up the visitor chair, gets comfortable, and lays his hand on Stiles again.

  
  


Its been three weeks since his recovery.

"Where are you staying?"

_The hospital. The local motel. None of your business._

"Are you staying in America? Have you got a passport or immigration papers?"

_Yes. Maybe. I don't know for sure yet. Never you mind._

"I got room for you if you need anything."

_You have nothing I need. Stop concerning yourself with me._

"Nice talk, Derek."

"Hmm."

  
  


"Tell me a story?" Stiles asks in that thick Polish accent of his.

Derek leans back against his chair and thinks. "I don't know any off the top of my head," he admits.

Stiles hums thoughtfully, eyes sparkling. "Tell me about the night terrors that wake you at night."

"What?"

"The ones about feeling the Alpha power come to you as you were eating breakfast, or the double-crosser in your squadron. When the Germans shot you multiple times to watch you heal."

Derek is stunned. "Stiles."

"Why don't you tell me about the way you feel when they drag me from the room?"

"Stiles, what- I don't understand," Derek says quickly, leaning forward. "You're not there anymore, _you're not—_ "

But then he is. Derek is chained to his chair by silver cuffs and there are German troops banging open the door, and Stiles is sitting stock frozen in fear on the bed.

" _P-proszę_..."

"Leave him alone!" Derek growls, fighting the chains that never gave him problems before. "Don't you _bloody_ touch him!" He morphs to his beta form, snarling threateningly as the soldiers come closer.

" _Unmensch_." This time the soldier spits at him and Derek roars.

" _Derek_!!" Stiles screams in total panic, another one dragging him from the bed. His arms flail, hands searching for something to grasp on to.

Derek grabs his hand (all bones, all bones, _all bones_ ) and Stiles breaks with a sad sigh.

  
  


Derek's head jerks up and he snatches his hand away from Stiles' prone body. Stiles remains unmoving (of course, of course), his heartbeat beeps rhythmically. He is exactly the same, and will probably be exactly the same for a long time.

Without informing the three betas, he leaves and gets on the next plane to London. Derek needs to live again and remember what life was before the war.

 

 


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What the fuck did I just write?
> 
> TRIGGER WARNINGS RIGHT HERE:  
> Original character war survivor commits homicide/suicide. Suicide in detail. Children of war.

The click of a gun ( _Vis_ , definitely a Vis handgun) being dismantled is not unfamiliar to Derek, but the first couple times he heard his neighbours in the flat next door taking care of their firearms made him pause and listen closely.

Someone cleans them twice a week. A little obsessive, Derek thinks, but to each their own hobby; the firearms may be new and the person wants to keep the shine.

Like they have nothing better to worry about these days.

  
  
  


When Derek turns off the hot water faucet, he turns on the cold for the same amount of time without using it. He turns it off again.

The lights stay off even when the dreary weather rolls in or the sun sets. Derek doesn't think about them at all when it gets dark in his loft. The loft itself is small, obviously cut in half in some rooms to make the other loft beside his larger. The manager was worried Derek was going to find it too small, yet its almost comforting. Its what he's used to.

When he leaves for the day, Derek locks the door. He makes it down two flights of stairs before he comes back with a nasty itch, sticks the key back into the lock, and unlocks and locks and repeats eleven times ( _Mom, Dad, Laura, Cora, Peter, Olivia, Malia, Liam, Thomas, Eliza, Opal_ ). The itch doesn't crawl anymore.

He sighs and goes down the stairs again.

  
  
  


Derek fills the paperwork and leaves the British Military with honors.

"Thank you for your service to the Queen."

Derek refrains from opening his mouth in case he says something biting, so he nods.

  
  
  


London is still filled with rubble from the war. Derek can pick out the werewolf volunteers as he walks to the market. Sometimes he delays himself and helps them. It takes his mind off thinking too much.

A man stops him once. "Can I borrow you for a bit to help me?" He points to an overfilled wheelbarrow with smashed cement remains. "I need to take this down to L&M Construction. They want to smash it down and create new material."

"Sure."

They each take a handle, Derek taking the brunt weight of it, and the man makes small talk.

"I'm figuring it will be about a couple months before the collateral is completely swept up," he says. "A lot longer for the emotional damage."

Derek glances at him. He's a greying brown middle-aged man with deep lines in his face. His scent is tainted of tragedy that Derek knows too well.

"You lost family," Derek says quietly.

The man takes in a shuddering breath. "My only child. My son." He nearly loses his footing in the moment of grief and he curses as his hand slips. " _O cholera_."

"I have it," Derek says as he takes both handles. The man looks surprised.

"You sure? That's a bit much for one person," he says.

"Maybe," he lies. Not for a werewolf, it isn't. "You've been working while I've only just started."

The man resigns with a sigh and nod. "Thank you."

A little further down, Derek admits, "I lost my family, as well. Back in Coventry." His company makes a soft understanding sound, and it makes Derek continue. "I had a big family. Its going... its going to be a long time before I'm used to being alone."

"Lord help His sad children here on Earth," the man says mostly to himself. Derek isn't sure what he thinks of God anymore.

When they arrive at the construction office, they're met with the workers who take the load from them with thanks. The man turns to Derek, offers his hand.

"Thank you again, Mr...?"

"Hale. Or just Derek," Derek says and shakes his hand.

"Jonathan-- John Stilinski."

Derek stills and it takes a lot of effort not to flee. "Stilinski. That's, uh. Polish, right? You sound English."

John smiles lightly. "It was my wife's name. She passed long ago with sickness. Say, I have a printing shop if you're looking for a job?"

Derek shakes his head and lies, "I'm going to America in a few weeks. I won't be of much help."

He can't bring himself to work with this man who believes his son is dead.

John nods, understanding, but says, "We all can't run from demons, unfortunately."

  
  
  


Derek trudges up the stairs with his groceries for the eleventh time and finally down his hallway. He takes his keys out and fumbles with the lock, but before Derek can open the door two shots come from his neighbours' door.

Derek is frozen, wide eyed.

Then there's a third shot. A girl crying. And before there's anymore, _anymore damage_ , Derek is suddenly kicking down the door.

A shot is fired in surprise at him. It catches Derek in a familiar place (why that shoulder, why that millimeter, he didn't even spit at this one, didn't mock), and it forces him to stumble, but he keeps his eyes trained on the girl brandishing the firearm, no older than a fifteen-maybe.

She's shaking. Sobbing and frightened, she looks at him as if Derek had given her the death sentence. She smells so familiar, she smells of...

"Put down the gun," Derek tells her calmly.

"You have no idea what my hell was. I had to stay alive, but all those people," she says desperately, like she wants him to understand. Derek does, for that moment.

"Show me," something compulses him to say, and for the love of God how he wishes he could take those words right back.

Abruptly her expression changes from deathly haunted to thankful, yet nothing peaceful. Her dark eyes close and somehow she twists her arm and the pistol in her hand to reach behind her head, all motions so smooth like drill practice. Practiced execution style.

Derek vaguely remembers shouting, reaching forward to stop his chain reaction, but he's in shock now: halfway there, he's showered in viscera from the off-centered exit wound.

She had smelled of rot. The rot from the camps, the lingering scent of blood and sickness soaked in skin and clothes that will never leave his memory.

His heart is erratic as he looks over the scene: parents and older brother dead with single bullet shots in the head, another practiced maneuver. They were dressed in their Sunday best.

Derek glances at the girl on the floor, sprawled. There are numbers tattooed in her arm. Derek's tattoo never stayed in ( _A-31413_ ), no matter how far they had dug the pen in.

He has a better look at it when the Mets flood in and push him down to the floor, searching him. Derek meets her sunken, glassy-eyed stare instead and sees Stiles looking back.

Yes, he ran away, Derek thinks, dismayed, but nothing will not remind him of Germany and the precious lives he lost. His family, his friends in service with him, his home. Derek's sanity is on the brink of destruction from the demons behind him; what if he were to turn around a face them head on?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "O cholera" - oh shit.


	4. Chapter 4

_SSG Vernon Boyd,_

_I’ll be returning to America. I may be interested in acting Alpha._

_DH_

 

_Derek Hale,_

_When I return from Japan, I may take you upon the offer. Isaac has a score to settle with you leaving your friend. He’s touchy about those things._

_VB_

_P.S. Erica is currently stationed in San Francisco until October._

  


_SSG Vernon Boyd,_

_My mistake. I’ll only allow him to hit me once, so he best make it my while._

_DH_

  


Derek doesn’t return to America until after New Years; he has legal matters to sort with his family’s land and insurance, and more resignation forms to fill out for the military.

He happens to cross paths with John Stilinski just once after their initial meeting, but the man was in a drunken stupor and goading men into bar fights. Derek urged the man outside and leached the pain from him until John'd passed out.

Derek left a note with him:

_Your son is alive. New York City. He survived._

_I'm sorry I didn't tell you sooner._

  


Derek misses this letter by hours:

 

_Merry Christmas Derek,_

_I'm not sure when we are to be expecting you, but your friend woke up this late afternoon. Isaac says the nurses call him the Christmas miracle, though he also says your friend is dumb. Did he speak at all during confinement? He rarely answers to simple questions with body gestures._

_VB_

  


Derek isn't too sure where to find Boyd and the other two betas when he arrives in New York City again. After a day if rest at a hotel, he goes back to the hospital Isaac Lahey worked at and asks for him at the reception desk.

"He's in an appointment currently," the receptionist informs, "and he's booked for the entire day."

Derek leaves them to their job with a nod of the head and takes the stairs to the coma and long-stay ward.

Stiles isn't in his room. Derek's heart seizes as he searches for a nearby attendant. He points in the room.

"Where is he?"

"I'm sorry, sir?"

"There was a patient here for months. Stiles. Where is he?"

The attendant's face brightens with realization and it makes Derek breathe with relief. If it were sympathy Derek would have feared the worse.

"He's been moved to the rehab ward in the separate building, north exit."

"Thank you," he says gratefully and runs to the rehab center. He stops at this reception desk, "I'm family of Stiles Stilinski. Where can I find him?"

The woman looks through her papers. "I'm sorry, he's currently in an appointment with his doctor."

Derek smiles dashingly, "Doctor Lahey, yes? I'm expected to see him and Stiles during the appointment."

"There aren't any notes about family coming," the woman says doubtfully, but hesitates, charmed. "Just say you skipped right past me, dear. They're in Stilinski’s room, 101."

"Thank you very much," Derek says and heads down the hall.

The rehab building is more homely than the hospital. The patients here are active, and it gives Derek an idea of the state that Stiles is in.

Room 101's door is closed, and Derek knocks before walking in. Lahey is sitting on the bed next to Stiles, looking at Derek.

"Welcome back," Lahey says without much welcome at all. Then he puts his hand on Stiles' arm, leaching pain. Stiles glances in Derek's direction, but otherwise doesn't acknowledge his entry.

Derek suddenly feels awkward being there, and slowly takes a seat that's offered across the room.

"Stiles, if you remember, this is Derek Hale," Lahey says. "May you blink twice if you understand?"

Stiles doesn't do anything.

"What's happened?" Derek asks, his gut twisting.

"Did you get Boyd's letter?" At Derek's negative, Lahey says, "Stiles woke up Christmas Day. Sometimes he responds to us with body reactions, yet other times he's in his own mind. Stiles has trauma."

Derek swallows, knowing trauma like the back of his hand. He scratches his hand, then the other one because he has to.

"He's not being sent to a mental facility?" Derek asks, feeling edgy.

Lahey looks at him sharply and replies vehemently, "I will never send any of my patients to a mental house if I can help it."

Derek relaxes with a satisfied nod. "That's good."

"Stiles can function to take care of his own needs, but has been dumb - mute, as they say lately - since his awakening. I'm not sure if he's purposely ignoring us or if that's just the trauma. Possibly both; you said he is Polish?"

Derek nods again. "He can understand a lot of English, probably more than he let on in the camp. His father is English."

Stiles' eyes snap on him, but doesn't do anything else outwardly. His pulse rises slightly.

"You met him?" Lahey asks, watching Stiles carefully.

"I did when I went back," he answers. "I helped him with a bit of cleanup, and he told me he lost his son during the war. When he told me his name it wasn't hard to make the connection."

Stiles still doesn't say anything which bothers Derek; for all the times Stiles woke up with _tata_ on his lips, he thought it would get a stronger reaction.

"I told him his son was alive in America," he continues, edging on the truth. "With a man that lost his wife before, I think we will see him soon given the state he takes in depression."

" _Znowu pije_ ," Stiles whispers. He looks out the window.

Lahey tries to encourage more from his patient, but Stiles says nothing else. He doesn't look away from the window.

Derek takes this moment to thoroughly examine Stiles' appearance. He's gained little weight and muscle mass since Christmas, and he doesn't look as pale as he once had. He still smells of prolonging sickness, but its hidden under different scents ( _where he's been, what he's eaten, what his emotions are saying ( **sadness, anger, hopelessness** )_).

His eyes are still sunken.

"May I talk to you outside, Mr. Hale?" Lahey asks as he stands, so Derek stands and follows him into the hall. He glances over his shoulder; Stiles hasn't moved at all, still.

Its going to take getting used to.

"What is--" A fist connects with all its werewolf strength and speed to Derek's jaw. He hears a bone crack, feels the shifting as it heals itself.

"T'at's fa him," Isaac seethes, Brooklyn accent thickening. "I dun care what was goin' through ya head, but I'mma believa in people getting betta with sa’port from friends an' family durin' da start of recovery, even from someone t'at was thar fer him in Germany. _Especially_ then."

"He's been awake for about three weeks," Derek says. "Its still the start."

"Ya ever hear 'bout coma patients bein' able ta hear? I believe t'at, too."

Derek doesn't know what to do with that; what's been done is done, but...

"It won't happen again."

Isaac levels him with a look before giving a deep sigh, anger receding as quickly as it came. "It better not. I would hate to follow an Alpha who normally abandons the pack."

"I'm on the learning road," Derek says. "I don't know how much Boyd's told you about me, but everything as Alpha is new to me. I've been an Alpha about six years now, five of it in the war, unable to make a pack."

Isaac nods and stuffs his hands into his scrub top. "Well, you got something of one now, I think."

"I guess so."

  


The four of them meet for drinks when Isaac gets off shift late that night. Derek learns quickly that Reyes can drink all three of them under the table with the only consequence of feeling the need to dance with every man and woman in the bar. Derek refuses, but notices the softness in Boyd's face when they dance.

Derek lines their empty shot glasses in equal distance from each other and the edge of the bar. Isaac places his own in the line, but Derek has to do it over because _its just not right_.

"Looks like ya coulda used some support, too, ya know?" Isaac slurs, eyeing him with more attentiveness than a drunken werewolf has any right to.

"Very likely," Derek mutters, counting the glasses over and over again. He needs two more shot glasses.

"What's the num'er?" Isaac asks.

"Eleven."

"In-ter-estin' num'er," he hints.

"There were eleven others in my pack."

"Survivor's guilt ain't healthy."

"You're informing a man with PTSD about survivor's guilt, you realise?"

"Not everyone realises it," Isaac responds listlessly. He beckons the bartender for two more shots. "Stiles doesn't realise it."

"Stiles thought he lost his father," Derek mutters. "He's lost him until he sees him again." He downs the shot placed in front of him and immediately sets it in line with the others. _Cora_.

Isaac gives him his glass.

 _Laura_.

  


Stiles is in the warm greenhouse garden with his overseer when Derek returns the next day.

"Hi there," the young man says brightly. "I'm Scott. Are you a friend of Stiles?"

"Yes." Its all he offers. Scott pays it no mind and turns to Stiles.

"Your friend has come to see you, Stiles."

Stiles looks at Scott, then at Derek, then back to the garden.

"How's he doing?" Derek asks.

"Okay," Scott shrugs. "His usual."

"What does that entail?"

"Normal function minus speaking to people. Gets a little distant, but he's listening. Aren't you?" he adds to Stiles who doesn't acknowledge him in any way. Scott smiles as if there's a secret shared between him and Stiles.

"What do you do with him, usually?"

"I just follow him around the building. He doesn't get in trouble; he likes the library a lot. I talk to him about my day and things like that." Scott shrugs again. "Normal things; he's not stupid or impaired. He might tire easily with exercise, but his strength is returning gradually."

Derek feels guilt for healing to perfect performance within a week.

"Is he in any pain?"

Scott cocks his head, considering him. "You can ask him yourself, if you want."

Derek blinks, thrown. "Um. Okay." He stands in front of Stiles and kneels, where he meets his gaze. Stiles continues to stare straight through him.

"Are you feeling pain?" Derek asks, then adds after a long moment, "Blink twice for yes."

No change.

"Stiles," Scott says, "are you with us?"

Stiles blinks twice.

"Are you in any pain?"

No blinks.

Derek frowns and carefully wraps his hand around the boy's bare calve, out of Scott's line of sight. Stiles' heartbeat spikes a tiny bit as moderate pain ( _exertion, stress, migraine, a full-body ache that is disconnected from the before mentioned_ ) leaves his body into Derek's. It would have been enough to ask for a pain reliever, at least. Stiles’ body sags in relaxation.

“Huh. Are you a werewolf,” is the question that makes Derek choke from unexpectancy. He stares at Scott who shrugs. “Dr. Lahey is one.”

“Did he tell you?” Were you stalking him; are you a hunter?

“I was having an asthma attack, once. I took bad medicine for it, too much adrenaline,” Scott explained. “He did this thing where he pulled the pain straight from me. He thought I was too far in cardiac arrest to realise, but I wasn’t.”

Derek sighs. “Yes, I’m a werewolf.”

“You know that’s really super, right?” Scott asks, overjoyed.

Stiles blinks twice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Znowu pije - drinking again.


	5. Chapter 5

 

Derek wakes with a cold sweat. Outside there's thunder that his dream played into air raids, and sleet hammers against his windows.

He wills his heart to calm down before gathering his blankets to sleep in the nook between the bed and wall.

This is familiar.

  
  


Stiles has bags beneath his eyes the next time Derek sees him later that week. The weather had forced Derek to stay inside until he realised there didn't seem to be a let up anytime soon; he needed to speak with the betas about their plans for the full moon. In England, there was lots of chances to run, especially on the outskirts of Coventry. Here in the city of New York, however...

"He smells dead beat."

"He hasn't been sleeping well," Scott says to Derek. Both of them watch Stiles from across the common room as they talk. The young man is putting together a puzzle of the Eiffel Tower.

"Third shift says this weather is keeping him awake."

"I see," Derek acknowledges, knowing the feeling all too well.

"They said he's been sleeping in his bathroom and starts having panic attacks if they guide him back to bed." Derek can feel Scott's hesitation, but he asks, "There's not a lot in his file, but this is... it's the outcome of the war, isn't it? You were with him, weren't you?"

A loud clap of thunder shakes the building, and Derek watches Stiles freeze, hand clenching a puzzle piece. He can hear Stiles' heart working double time as if Derek had his ear pressed against his chest.

"Is he prone to panic attacks?" Derek asks instead of answering.

"Before this week, it'd be approximately once or twice a month," Scott says, eyeing Stiles' reactions. "Its almost a daily occurrence now with the storm."

With a nod, Derek heads to sit across from Stiles and hears Scott follow close behind. Stiles looks at him with wide eyes, lips parted with quick, uneven breaths ( _in, in, out, in, out, in, in_ ).

Derek doesn't know what to say, so he opts to reach out and touch Stiles' hand. At the brush of contact, Stiles latches on tightly. A whine escapes him, eyes welling with tears.

" _Nik... nikit nie rozumie_ ," he breathes, barely coherent to Derek's enhanced hearing.

"You know I don't know Polish," Derek responds quietly, trying to edge him away from anxiety. He glances at Scott, but the caretaker only shrugs, not understanding either. He wishes he did, and wonders if Stiles finds it safer if no one understands what he says.

The hand in his trembles when another roll of thunder passes.

"Its just stormy weather, Stiles," Derek reassures. "It'll be okay."

Stiles doesn't say anything, doesn't blink, but looks dubious. Derek almost smiles.

"Let's go outside," he suggests as he stands. He gently tugs Stiles hand but Stiles pulls away violently and suddenly looks like he's somewhere else.

Maybe where soldiers are forcing prisoners to leave temporary shelters of safety. Where sometimes when someone leaves, you hear gunfire, and never see them again.

"Or not," Derek mutters and curses his unthinking. Stiles' pulse begins to skyrocket, trembling all over, yet otherwise unmoving. "He's having an attack," he tells Scott.

Scott moves forward quick, his hands holding Stiles' tight. "Stiles. Stiles, its Scott," he says, tone calm and sure. "I need you to listen to me, okay? You are at Bellevue Hospital Center in New York City. Whatever you are experiencing is in your head. I'm with you, and Derek's with you. You are safe here. Blink if you understand me."

It comes slowly but Stiles blinks twice. He doesn't stop hyperventilating, however, breath hitching to find air he can't grasp.

"Good. That's good," Scott encourages. "I want you to put your head down between your knees for me. It's to help your breathing."

He gets a jerky nod this time, and Scott releases one of his hands to guide Stiles to bend over and put his face to his knees.

It takes a long couple minutes with Scott whispering encouragement ( _you got this, you're doing good_ and _concentrate on your breathing, that's it_ ) before Stiles calms down and leans back in his chair, cheeks streaked with sweat and tears. He breathes fine, a little shuddery, but fine.

"Scott," a nurse calls from behind a desk, watching them carefully.

"She's going to ask if you want a sedative," Scott explains to Stiles clearly. "Would you like one?"

Stiles, already exhausted, nods.

"Alright. I'll let her know. I'll be right back." Scott goes to the nurse, and Derek listens to them talk about the situation. He learns Stiles is still refusing his normal medication for pain and to help his appetite. Derek frowns.

They both come over, the nurse with a needle, and as soon as Stiles sees it his hand springs forward and grabs Derek's shirt. He smells of fear.

And underlying sickness, still.

"Its just the sedative," Derek assures. "It'll help you sleep."

Stiles' lips stutter until he finally says, " _Zostań_."

Derek doesn't understand, but the way his hand grips tighter and the bones in his knuckles grind together makes him believe Stiles wants him to stay put. A fear of needles.

Of course. Another bad memory dragged from the camps.

"I'm not going anywhere."

  
  


Boyd and Reyes meet him again at the bar and, once tipsy enough, begin kicking their feet on the dance pad to a jive song. Isaac, still donned in his scrubs, stumbles in a while later, looking weary to the bone.

"I was stuck in ER all weekend," he grumbles before knocking back two shots at once.

Derek makes a noncommittal hum, "Its the weather."

"Hate this time of year."

It doesn't take long before Boyd and Reyes to come wandering back to the bar for another drink, and its Boyd who brings up the full moon to Derek's pleasure.

"We don't have much of a ritual," he admits. "Our last Alpha was much older, wasn't fond of travel. What are your suggestions?"

"Adirondack," Derek says, because he has done a bit of research for preserves in area. "Its not far and we can be back within the same morning."

Reyes smiles wide. "I haven't been there since I was turned. Its beautiful."

"Then we will leave the day before. Can you get time off," he asks Isaac.

"I always request full moons off," the doctor says with a smirk. "Its a wonder they don't catch on."

Derek's lips lift in a small smile, looks to Boyd who shrugs.

"Do as the Romans do," he inputs, raising his glass.

  
  


"How long does recovery usually take?"

Isaac eyes him from under his lashes, turning a page in his patient's folder. "I dunno. You tell me."

"Never you mind," he huffs. "I don't think you're actually qualified to answer my question, or have me answer you."

"You're being impatient."

"Doesn't he have a therapist?"

"What good is it for him to go to one if he, one, doesn't talk or two, doesn't speak English if he does?"

Derek doesn't say anything to that and takes to watching Stiles stare out the window. The rain is lighter today, no thunder or lightning. It reminds Derek of home.

Its nearly four in the afternoon and he hasn't moved all day except to relieve himself, Scott said. Not to eat or drink, doesn't blink to questions, doesn't even hint that Stiles is in his in there at all.

Derek goes to sit beside him, and still there's no change in Stiles. He looks out the window, focuses his hearing on the light patter until it becomes like static.

Its nice.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nik... nikit nie rozumie - No one understands. (he's saying in the meaning of 'no one understands my anxiety' or no one understands why he's afraid of a rainstorm.  
> Zostań - stay


	6. Chapter 6

Boyd is the only beta of the three able to make the full transformation. It doesn't deter Isaac and Reyes running close behind he and Derek, however.

They had started miles out from the city, avoiding towns and roads, and it had been so long for Derek (four years, eight months, twenty-three days) since he was able to feel the moon like this, feel this free, surrounded with others.

He howls as soon as they're in the coverage of trees, and Reyes whoops out an exhilarated laugh, and there's a chorus of howls in reply, from the betas and from the wild wolves welcoming them.

Its been too long since his last shift; being on the run makes him ache all over, an itch Derek didn't realise he needed to scratch until now. The earth feels brand new between the pads of his paws, the scents still damp from the rain.

This is nothing compared to Coventry, surrounded by a familiar blood pack, the thrill of pure togetherness, pack mentality. It isn't even close.

Its all Derek has though, so he'll run.

He howls.

 

 

"You know, I still have a spare room open for you."

_No thanks._

"Have you even picked up any groceries?"

 _No._ He's been eating at the bar since he came back.

"The hotel will eat your savings."

_There's quite a bit to burn through. Maybe in about five years or longer._

"We know you're the Alpha, but we can provide too."

_Why would you bother?_

"Eloquent as ever."

"Of course."

 

 

There's an old man in a wheelchair speaking to Stiles.

"...but they couldn't do anything more, could they," Derek hears him say. "When you lived through one war, you lived through them all. I know you'll smarten up, kid. You're young. It won't be the worse thing you lived through. There are true monsters out there, for sure, for sure." He laughs, an ugly sound to Derek's ears. "Cancer, though. That's one everyone needs to try before they complain about their little problems."

"Stiles," Derek says loudly as he approaches. Both of them look at him, but Derek only looks at Stiles.

"Want to take a walk?"

Stiles stands and leads the way outside, and today's caretaker follows behind them, book in hand. She doesn't introduce herself so Derek pays her no mind. He falls in step beside the young man, and they take the path toward the blooming gardens.

"He's wrong," Derek says moments later when Stiles takes a bench to rest. "What happened to us was horrible. There will be nothing else like it."

Derek doesn't know what else to say, especially when Stiles doesn't reply or even appear that he's listening.

He sighs, and glances at the woman. She's blonde and striking, writing in the margins of her book. She's not watching them, seeming aloof in her caretaking. Derek frowns at her inattention, but uses her distraction to wrap his fingers around Stiles' wrist.

There's almost nothing to draw out. Body aches, some exhaustion, more hunger than usual.

"You're not eating, still?"

Stiles eyes flick toward him, mouth pulling down. A soft sound and he's pulling away his hand, folding them in his lap. Derek feels as if he's been slapped.

"Stiles," he says urgently, "You've got to eat something for today."

Stiles stubbornly ignores him, but Derek knows he's listening (brow tight, eyes alive but hard, smelling of irritation).

"That's-- Stiles, that's _stupid_. You don't eat enough as it is, and if you continue like this you'll just waste away. No wonder why you're not getting any better, you probably haven't had a decent meal in---"

Derek stops himself short with a click of his jaw.

_"How long have you been here?"_

_"Two years."_

He'd basically said the same thing the old man had. Get over it, your troubles are nothing, and Derek felt sickened enough to clench his eyes shut and swallow multiple times.

He's never read any report of how well Stiles eats during meals (, but his bread... Stiles always gave him portions of his bread), and Derek is reminded forcibly of his healing, of how his stamina always required him to eat, of how he was military trained to eat when you don't feel like it because you don't know the next time you'll eat, soldier.

But Stiles-- he hasn't eaten properly in two (and almost a half, at this point) years, living on bare minimum. Yes, he may have gained some weight since Derek had first seen him post-coma, but there's more than bread to choose from, more protein when tube feeding.

"I'm sorry," Derek apologises. "Don't listen to me. I'm worse than a soapbox spokesperson."He wants to say more, be selfish and tell Stiles he should be eating more, at least a full meal, but its not his place. Its not his journey to recovery.

He has his own journey to worry about.

The caretaker glances up at them with a raised eyebrow before ignoring them again.

Stiles hums.

 

 

"What’s your name?" the woman asks before he leaves. She has a flitting French accent. Stiles stops working on his puzzle to watch them.

Derek stares at her for a long moment, looking over her features. "Derek," he answers, guarding.

"I’m Kate," she says with an alluring smile, a slim hand touching his arm.

Derek smiles back the same, but doesn’t miss Stiles’ frown.

"Would you like to go to dinner sometime?" Kate asks.

He’s about to respond, yes or no he doesn’t know, maybe to say something about her forwardness, but Stiles stands up from his seat and leaves the room. Derek, to avoid answering, follows him.

He finds it strange Kate doesn’t follow Stiles, as well, being his caretaker and all.

 

 

Stiles' number, Derek realises over the next two weeks, is any of the six ( _five_ ) etched in his arm.

He walks around the greenhouse building three times, hand shaking as it runs over its walls as he goes.

Five times Stiles will place the same puzzle piece in the picture. Takes it out, put it back, take it out, put it back, take it out, put it back, take it out, put it back, take it out, keeps it there.

Before settling to sleep he will flip his pillow and fluff it eight times. Its not just trying to find comfort; Derek counts eight as Stiles turns from left to right, left to right, left to right, left to right again. Each foot jiggles eight times as he finds sleep, its entirely subconscious.

The sixth number ( _fifth_ ) takes Derek's breath away. In the hallway, Stiles pauses at the light switch, and flicks it off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on. Off and on.

The orderlies are coming to find the disturbance, he can hear, but Derek takes Stiles' hand and guides them to Stiles' room. When they're in, Derek puts his hand on the light switch, watching Stiles watch him.

He flicks it off and on for his mother and father, his sisters Laura and Cora, his brother Thomas, Peter and his wife Olivia, their children Malia, Liam, Eliza, and Opal.

Stiles reaches out for him and Derek kneels between his legs, throat tight and wanting to cry but he doesn't. He hasn't cried since he left home, his mother holding his face in her hands and telling him to _just be careful. Write when you get there. Oh, baby, don't cry..._

Stiles rocks them back and forth without count.

 

 

Pounding on his hotel door wakes Derek and he grouches as he gets up. The knocking doesn't cease until he opens the door and there stands Isaac, eyes wide, worried.

"What's wrong?" Derek prompts, sleepiness gone immediately.

"Scott hasn' been at work fer a week," Isaac rushes.

"Okay...?"

"He's neva called in. Neva taken vacation time. He's not answerin' his phone. He's not at home."

Derek pauses, studying him. "Scott's pack to you."

"We're frien's. I care, an' he's missin', Derek."

Derek chews on his tongue, thinking. He had noticed the lack of Scott hanging around Stiles, two women orderlies taking turns instead for a few weeks. He hadn't thought anything of it at the time.

"I wouldn't know where to start looking for him," Derek admits. "Shouldn't this be a matter for the police?"

"His motha has already tried ta police," Isaac says impatiently. "They haven' caught wind o' him."

"Have you tried tracking his scent?"

"I--" he stops, blinks. "No, I haven'."

"Then lets go," Derek says, turning back inside to get dressed. "We'll start at his house first."

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. Argents. I'm terrible. I tried to do without them, but they forced their way in, of course. That's what they do.
> 
> Confused about Stiles' number? It has a sequence of -1-1; he turns it into 11, instead of two 1s.


	7. Chapter 7

He doesn’t like Kate.

Between her inattentiveness to his medical and daily needs and less-than-pleasant expressions when she looks at him, he really misses Scott, who hasn’t shown up for work in… He takes a minute to think about it before looking at the big calendar on the wall for everyone to see; he loses time, sometimes. He will be in Monday, blink, then wake up Wednesday. Derek comes in on Wednesdays, for sure, like he doesn’t have anything better to do in the middle of a workweek.

He hasn’t seen Scott since almost two weeks ago, when a second shift orderly nudged him on the shoulder and said it was time for him to go. Scott had stood, looked at him regretfully, and said, “I’ll see you in the morning, bud” with a wave.

The morning didn’t come and he lost time easier; he remembers only three days in two weeks being at the hospital, four days being in Germany, rotting and being torn apart. Most of the time he finds he can avoid Germany if there is someone keeping him grounded in today.

That, and for a number of other reasons, is why he doesn’t like Kate:

In the two days he was awake, not including the first Wednesday, Kate would taunt him. She would glorify the Germans and their techniques of persuasion, as she called it. Even if he never answered her, and when they were in private Kate would hit him for not responding ( _"I'll beat the dumb out of you, sweetheart."_ ), she would go on about how just their actions were, and why she was dying to know each intimate detail of his captivity.

"I want to be better at what I do," she had said before, a sharp finger running over his cheekbone. Kate looked at him thoughtfully. "I want to see you in blood."

( _she doesn't know blood like Stiles knows blood, rivers soaked in dirt floors that are shoveled to become graves, graves, graves of people of all sorts and not just Jews or supporters thereof, but people who loved in secret, people who travel the lands, and people who dream and know of better life, how would she like blood from his side of the camp fence?_ )

He doesn't like the way he hears her whisper to her father about werewolves. Its too soft to make out, but words pop up, like _werewolf_ , _monsters_ , and _should I just kill him?_

He will wake up later, but he hopes he doesn't dream of her.

Today he wakes. Its Wednesday again.

He keeps looking at the clock, worrying as it edges closer to second shift, then its dinner time. He feels sick, gags on the bite of bread in his mouth. Second shift orderly walks him back to his room.

"Hey," someone says, and he looks up. Its the black man who visits Isaac sometimes. "I'm a friend of Stiles', I can take him back for you."

"Isn't there a rule against niggers inside the building?" the orderly questions, and he decides he doesn't like her, either.

The man smiles easily enough, pulling out his wallet and flashing his credentials. "I'm a US Army Sergeant, I'm allowed anywhere. Now, allow me to escort Mr. Stilinski back to his room, privately." The caretaker lets him, huffing under her breath, and the man places a hand on his shoulder to guide them to his room. He sits on his bed as the man takes a seat in a chair.

"I know I haven't properly introduced myself before," he says with a small smile. "I'm Vernon Boyd, Derek's beta in his pack. You're aware of werewolves, aren't you?"

He stares. Of course he is. After meeting Derek he can almost easily spot a werewolf, given Derek and Isaac's need to pull pain from him, reading his heart patterns when panic attacks happen. Is there a such thing as bad werewolves? He blinks twice and Boyd smiles wider, but he notices it doesn't reach his eyes. Boyd seems tired. Worried. He has seen it a lot on his father before… _Before_.

"Good. I came on the behalf of Derek. He says he won't be able to make it today; there's been some complications."

Whatever has him worried, he guesses. He looks out the window. Its getting warmer, and groundskeepers are tending to the gardens.

He doesn't know when Boyd leaves, but the next time he looks up he's alone. That's okay, he supposes.

 

 

Reyes is Scott's neighbor, conviently enough. She tells them that a man and woman came the night Scott went missing. There wasn't any loud noises so she hadn't thought anything of it. In a matter of days she's able to lead Derek and Isaac on a trail to abandoned warehouses near the port before the scent is muddled too much from the ocean. Boyd joins them soon after, nodding to Derek.

"Stiles is okay," Boyd reports.

Derek nods, looking around the area. There's at least ten large houses, fifteen smaller ones; they're going to need to split up.

"Beta One and Two," Derek says, and Boyd and Reyes stands to attention that Derek likes. "Go to the North end work straight down, howl if anything comes up. Be careful. We don't know if its a simple kidnapping or if they're hunters."

"Copy that, Alpha," Reyes grins, and they take off, sticking to the sides of buildings and shadows silently. Derek looks at Isaac.

"You're with me, Isaac. We're going West. Make no sound, stick behind me and in the shadows. If you notice anything odd tell me immediately; nothing is too small to let someone else know."

"Got it," Isaac responded.

 

 

They find Scott in the last building East, closest to the harbor. Derek makes a short howl to signal Boyd and Reyes before they inspect Scott's condition.

"Jesus," Isaac breathes as they near.

Scott is hooked to an automobile charger, passed out, breathing faintly. His pulse is too slow, blood coming from his mouth and ears, wounds on his chest and where they have him bound to the chair he sits with barbed wire. Derek sees himself sitting there, back in Germany, surrounded by scientists.

Isaac is nudging him before Derek snaps out of it. "Don't get lost, Derek." Derek swallows and pulls himself together. If it was torturous to an Alpha werewolf, Derek can't imagine how Scott is still alive, if just barely.

"T-tend to his care. I need to shut the electricity off."

"Why don't you join him instead?"

Derek and Isaac whip around, cursing that they were caught off guard, and there stands Kate from the hospital, flanked by two other men. They're all armed, pointing shotguns at them.

"You're Kate Argent, aren't ya?" Isaac says, arms spread and hands up. "A nurse assistant? I'm Doctor Lahey. Put down--"

She shoots him and Isaac drops to the ground. "Shut up, werewolf. You can beg like a dog later." Derek roars, smells the wolfsbane, and shifts into his beta form. The two men get edgy, back away slightly, but Kate raises an amused eyebrow. "Down boy," she purrs, "or I’ll kill them both before you can touch me."

Derek hesitates. He doesn’t know what she’s capable of; she’s obviously a trained hunter without code or moral and facing her one-on-one would be difficult enough, but she has lackies.

"Let them go," he says, reasoning. "I’ll surrender if you let them go."

"D’ere’," Isaac moans, but he ignores him.

Kate seems to think about it, at least, before finally glancing to the man on her left. "Let loose the human." The man circles around Derek carefully until he reaches the battery and shuts it off. She looks to the other. "Put the beta down."

Derek tenses, "I said both of them!" He lowers himself, ready to pounce on the next hunter who moves. "My life for theirs!"

"You think I'm just gonna let you wild beasts walk right out of here, sweetheart?" She laughs, throwing her head back. "Color me unsurprised, he's a real idiot. What are you still standing there for? I said kill the beta!"

The man shifts nervously in place, glancing around them, stuttering, "Wh-which o-one?"

Kate blinks the same time Derek realises Boyd and Reyes found them. "Which... what--"

Derek's betas drop from the rafters above, Boyd tackling the man closest to Kate, rolling with him when she stops being surprised and pulls a pistol from her hip to shoot. Her henchman groans in pain when he gets shot and stops moving. Derek hears Reyes drop on the second lackey, and before Kate can try again, he charges at her, wrestling the firearm out of her hands and getting her to the ground. Her wrists held, she spits in his face, yelling, " _Vous monstre_! All of you, monsters!"

Erica's foot comes out of nowhere and connects with the side of Kate's head, hard, and she falls unnaturally silent. Derek waits there a couple long moments, listening to her pulse and breathing to make sure she's well out, then he sags, breathing hard.

"Get her shotgun, pull a round from it," he tells someone, he doesn't care who.

 

 

They end up leaving the hunters there; it would've been difficult to explain to the authorities the details, and they'd wonder how each of them came out unscathed without arms.

"Derek," Erica says nervously as she slows, easing Scott to the ground. "He's not going to make it."

"L'mme see..." Isaac grunts, and Boyd helps him to the ground. Isaac is thankfully healing well, but Derek knows he needs rest. He checks Scott's pulse manually, counts his breaths, opens his eyelids. After five minutes, he looks up at Derek, and Derek knows what he's going to ask.

 

 

He's in Germany, lost in the sights and sounds, choking on the tastes and smells, curling away from their touch when he's found. The rescue comes from a Spanish accent, calling to him, "Hey, Stiles, I'm back." He looks away from the wreckage, turns away from the cruel hands, toward the soft voice of, who he believes to be, his friend.

Scott smiles at him, but he thinks there's something different about his smile. Its lost the simplicity of living and has become strained with the understanding of a demented world. Stiles sighs softly and slowly reaches for him with long arms, pulls him down and hugs him tightly.

Scott's shoulders shake as he burries his face in Stiles' shirt. Not too far away, he notices Derek.

" _Dziękuję_ ," he says, and Derek inclines his head.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dziękuję - Thank you.


	8. Chapter 8

Lady Liberty is a magnificent sight to behold as the boat pulls up into the docks, but he's not here for the view.

John Stilinski waits as families line up to leave the ship, belongings in one hand and a note, folded and refolded again and again, in the other.

  
  
  
  
  


The months roll into summer. Scott quickly finds control in his shifts, but is quiet about his anchor. Each full moon they go to the preserve to run and run, carefree in the absence of hunters. In between, Derek has upgraded his living to an apartment not two blocks from the hospital, and he buys groceries for himself and the pack who come by fairly often.

While the nightmares are dwindling down, the itch is still there. Derek will find himself cooking enough for eleven people without thought, then bring the leftovers to the hospital for Stiles, Scott, and the rest of the staff working. The nurses know him well enough now, greet and smile at Derek as he comes in.

Stiles' will mostly push the food around his plate, or taps his fork in the numbers tattooed on his arm, but lately eats enough ( _more than bread, at least ten small, small bites of vegetables_ ) to satisfy Derek. Its an improvement, and Stiles will sometimes smile very slightly ( _to show thanks, to be proud in his recovery_ ).

One afternoon, Isaac calls from across the room, "Derek." He looks up, and Isaac beckons.

Derek puts a hand on the back of Stiles' neck, says, "I'll be back."

Stiles nods, days where he blinked in reply behind him.

"What is it?" he asks quietly when he nears Isaac.

"The front desk has gotten a call from a man looking for Stiles," Isaac says. "He claims to be his father."

"Did they get a name?" Derek asks first, because he can never be too careful.

"John Stilinski," but as Derek nods Isaac says, "We couldn't disclose Stiles being here or not; its against the law. Right now you're the only listed guardian Stiles has. Do you want his dad to know he's here?"

Derek becomes appalled. "Why would I keep Stiles away from his father?"

He sees the way Isaac glances to Stiles, expression deeply considering. "Because he's pack, Derek. He means a lot to you, and in extension, to the rest of us. What will happen when his father wants to take him back to England?"

Derek's jaw clenches and he bites his tongue on his initial response, to fight to keep the boy where he is.

"Then he leaves," Derek mutters, finally. "Its the right thing. I'd like the callback number when I leave, if I could."

When he goes back to Stiles, he looks at Derek with confusion that Derek shakes his head at.

At home, Derek picks up the phone and dials the numbers he was given.

" _Hello?_ "

Derek hangs up.

He can't do it yet.

  
  
  
  
  


Erica and Boyd come by and shed light in Derek's apartment.

"You'll ruin your eyes like that," Erica says, nodding to the book Derek has in hand.

He stares at her, notices the new sweetness in her scent.

"You're pregnant," he says, awed. She smiles brightly at him, until he frowns. "I'm not against it, but did you two think it was a good idea?"

"We don't care," says Boyd. "If we can't find some church to marry us, we'll travel to D.C."

"I give my blessing," he says, because is he to deny them love? Is he to tell Erica her child will be an abomination, all because it isn't moral? Derek has lived for months in a hell where extremists segregated people who came from different religions and colors and ideals. He doesn't believe he could blasphemize anyone for anything after that.

Boyd still lets out a relieved rush of air, his hand finding Erica's and gripping it tight.

"Thank you."

  
  
  
  
  


Scott shoots him a quick grin as Derek goes down the hall. "Bathroom run," he explains. "Watch after him. The creeper has been staring all day."

The old man, the creeper, rolls close to Stiles as Derek enters the room, but he pauses to listen. Thanks to Isaac, he knows Kate is this man's, Gerard Argent's, daughter.

"You shouldn't surround yourself with those beasts, Stiles," he says. "They're dangerous and will take everything you love. They're abominations, no better than niggers, Japs, and don't get me started on that bean. My daughter was almost killed by that werewolf who visits you, and I'm so lucky she's still alive. If you have anyone or anything you love so dear you better switch sides now."

He sees Stiles start to stand, but suddenly Gerard grips his arm. "Listen to me Stiles--" Derek starts forward, "Stiles."

Stiles looks over his shoulder at him, looks back at Gerard who urges him to stay.

"Be smart, boy."

Stiles wrenches his arm free from Gerard's hold and goes straight to Derek without looking back. There's a determined look in his eyes that reminds Derek of the spark he'd seen during confinement. Gerard glowers at the both of them, but he can't find it in himself to care because Stiles takes the initiative for once, pulling him back down the hall by his sleeve.

He stops at the segregated restrooms, waiting for Scott who looks surprised to see them both when he emerges.

"What's going on?" he asks, eyebrows jumping when Stiles grabs ahold of him, too, and leads them in the direction of his room.

He pushes them to sit on his bed before hugging them both tightly.

"You're not abominations," Stiles whispers, so very quiet. Derek's shocked into silence. "You're _not._ "

  
  
  
  
  


Derek's hand hesitates over the phone before he picks it up and calls John. It answers on the second ring.

"Mr. Stilinski, this is Derek Hale," he says, heart thudding hard in his chest. "Stiles is at Bellevue Hospital Center."

There's a short silence, and then:

" _Th-thank you for looking after my boy, Mr. Hale_ ," he says, choked. " _It... it means so much to me that you would call._ "

Derek swallows thickly before replying. "No problem."

He knows he doesn't need to be a werewolf to hear that lie.

  
  
  
  
  


Isaac finds Derek at the bar the next night.

"Ya know, I had my suspicions 'bout you bein' a yellow belly coward," he seethes, taking the shot glass from Derek's hand and downing it. "I jus' didn' realise how much."

"I take the reunion went well," Derek mutters, taking the glass back to stack in another empty glass. There are six glasses, stacked in three short towers. "Sit and help me. I need eleven."

"I ain't helpin' yer OCD," he promises as he sit, but orders a tainted whiskey. "Ya shoulda been there fer Stiles. It was overwhelmin'."

"And what," Derek snorts, stealing Isaac's glass, "have him know I've been coveting him for about six months? His father probably realises it already."

Isaac sighs. "Not six months. He only got in contact a week ago, you were protecting Stiles. From what I've seen of John he's a smart man. He would understand."

Derek starts to shake his head, and sees Boyd and Erica come in from over Isaac's head. Erica smirks at him. "You look like you're moping."

"I'm not--"

"He is, don't listen to him," Isaac sticks in. "Stiles and his dad are reunited."

Erica blinks in surprise. "Really? That's...." She glances at Derek. "Great?"

"Are they leaving?" Boyd asks the question Derek does and doesn't want to know the answer to.

"I'm not sure," Isaac says. "I was speaking with him a little. He wants to make sure Stiles is recovered before taking him from Bellevue. He did also mention that he found a job at the paper press. It may be long term," he adds, possibly for Derek's benefit.

Derek wants to drop the subject so he points at Boyd. "Help me drink."

"I don't enable bad habits," Boyd returns with a smile. Erica sighs loudly, wistful.

"You're not allowed," Isaac and Boyd chide in unison.

"I know..." she sighs again, sounding almost like a petulant teenager. Derek shakes his head and calls the bartender again for the number of drinks he needs. He downs them quickly, Isaac sharing two or three. He lays down his money and claps each of them on the shoulder as he leaves.

He stops by the hospital on his way home.

Its late at night and doesn't meet the fewer staff lingering at their stations, just opens Stiles' door a little to check on him.

The light is on and he's awake, staring at Derek. His eyes (bright, calculating, not as sunken as they had been), a little red (from crying Derek smells), narrow at him.

Derek says nothing as he shuts the door again, and hears something (a pillow, probably) hit the door.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It goes downhill from here.


	9. Chapter 9

Isaac informs Derek that whatever progress Stiles has made in six months has become null; about three weeks after Stiles' father came, Stiles has stopped talking and stopped paying attention. The panic attacks that dwindled down to practically nothing start up again with a vigor, to at least twice a week.

Scott comes by to express how angry he is with Derek, how Stiles isn't eating ( _at all_ , and that tears at him because _he was doing so good_ ) and Derek allows him to break the few things he owns. He hardly uses that lamp, anyway. When Derek is in a nervous tick, and Scott doesn't destroy enough stuff, Derek takes to ripping pages out of his books. Eleven. Mom, Dad, Thomas, Laura, Cora, Peter, Olivia, Malia, Eliza, Liam, Opal.

He doesn't understand what's wrong, he doesn't understand why Stiles is reverting back into old habits. Derek gave him his father, that should be enough for the boy who thought he lost everything, right?

Erica calls him stupid to his face, but its because she's angry, as well.

Boyd has been called back to Japan.

  
  
  
  


Derek holes himself in his apartment.

He ignores his phone ringing during the day, shuts himself up in his bedroom when he hears one of the betas come in. They mess around the kitchen and cook him meals that they know he'll eat when they leave.

He hasn't led the pack into the preserve for the last two full moons.

World War II happens in July, when Time Square lights up on Independence Day. Derek knows where he is, he knows the war is over, but the fireworks explode in the same sound the bombs did during an air raid from a distance. He doesn't have his pistol anymore, he sold it to a pawn shop in England, but now his hands are clutching at his sides for something to defend himself with. Derek looks out the window, the buildings outside becoming towns emptied for civilian safety.

"Ferguson," Derek says out loud to an empty room, the scene replaying so vivid in mind. "We're too close to the drop. What are our coordinates?"

_I don't know, captain._

Derek turns around. "What the bloody hell do you mean--" He stops suddenly, looking at the wall, but sees Ferguson pointing his pistol at him. "What do you think you're doing, soldier?"

_Get your hands up! Get your hands up now!_

Derek raises his hands slowly. "Think about what you're doing and think about the direction the battlefield is going," he says carefully. "We're chasing them back, they're not going to win this. What ever some Axis soldier or general, or God forbid Hitler himself, has promised you is going to be completely futile. You put that gun down now, walk the other way, and I swear to God I won't kill you."

Ferguson is thinking about it _(exactly like Kate did, weighing out the pros)_ , but in the end he shoots. He shoots so damn close to Derek's heart that he roars out in pain and fear that this is where it ends, this is how he'll die, alone in every aspect.

It ultimately leads him to the camps, and there's so much electricity running through his veins already.

  
  
  
  


Derek wakes in the bathtub screaming when Isaac throws ice water over him.

" _Bloody hell!_ "

Isaac throws the bucket aside, steps forward, and grabs his dirty shirt in his fist. "I could be sayin' the same thing, Derek! There’s _blood_ on ya! What the fuckin' hell has gotten into ya!? Ya smell like shit, ya look like shit; take a fuckin' shower!" Isaac draws back a fist and hits Derek good in the jaw before shaking it off and turning the water on full blast.

"When yer decent, ya got some company that wants ta see ya!"

  
  
  
  


Derek walks out fresh a while later and comes face to face with John Stilinski sitting in a chair. Isaac’s in the kitchen, feigning privacy. John makes to stand, but Derek waves at him to stay seated.

“Mr. Hale,” John says. “How are you?”

Derek looks around himself and his sparse furniture. The lamp hasn’t been replaced, and the overhead light shows a clean floor, destroyed books set back in their shelves. Still… “I’ve been better.”

John nods like he understands. “So has Stiles.”

“I’ve heard,” Derek says, tone soft. He doesn’t want to talk about Stiles but its the only reason why the boy’s father would be here. “How are you?”

For some reason that makes the man chuckle, strained. “I’m pulling my hair out,” he answers eventually. “Stiles lost a very important friend and now my son won’t come back to us for anything.”

“Oh,” is the only thing he thinks to say, then, “I’m sorry for his loss.” There’s a loud slam from a cabinet in the kitchen. He hears Isaac mutter, “What a fuckin’ dumbass.”

John sighs. “Mr. Hale, I was talking of you.” Derek looks at him sharply, assess the weary expression. He's bone-deep tired but Derek doesn't smell the unwillingness to be here, because John's scent is actually hopeful. "My boy needs you around, Mr. Hale. Would you come by and see him?"

It takes a moment to work his mouth open, because here's the outcome he never expected. Derek thought John would say _good riddance_ . He kept him from finding his son sooner than he had; he’d been in London for _months_ without saying a thing, any sane person would keep him away.

"Why?"

John drags a hand through his thin hair. “You were there for him when I wasn’t.”

“That wasn’t--” Derek stops short when John rolls up his sleeve.

There’s a serial tattoo.

_“My dad and I were hiding Jews.”_

He never realised and never took into consideration that John was at the camp, as well. This man in front of him, on the different side of health than Stiles and Derek were kept at, not thinning or sick. Derek swallows and looks away.

“I was useful to them,” John sighs again. “I’m a polyglot and I know a thing or two around a press machine. I took reports. I printed their posters. I knew a helluvalot more than the trigger-happy soldiers. Each day I would wake up, be given water to clean myself and clothes to dress in. I wore a swastika so the rookies wouldn’t shoot me by mistake.

“They took me from my son each morning,” he says, voice tight and full of anger and sadness. Derek looks at him again, sees the way his face contorts with the memory. “Gave me their food while Stiles starved. They searched me before and after my job was done, I couldn’t take anything back to help him. I slept in the camp with Stiles, watched him grow thin and ill, and in the morning it was repeat.

“Can you image how I felt, Mr. Hale, when I come back one evening and Stiles was gone?” John asks, barely a whisper and eyes bright with tears. “The prisoners that were in our shelter said some soldiers took him away, and when I went back the next morning I demanded to know what happened to him. I was given no answer and no reason. I had thought he was truly gone, so don’t you dare say you didn’t watch over him. Stiles is still alive, and I have you and your friends to thank for that.

“I can understand you hiding him, because he was helping you as much as you helped him, but look at you both now. My son is only this way again because you thought you were being selfless after you thought you were being selfish, and its hurt you as much as Stiles.

“So I’ll ask again,” John Stilinski says slowly, “Would you come by and visit my son?”

After a long moment, Derek sits on the floor, notices belatedly the noises in the kitchen have grown very quiet.

After another long moment, Derek wipes his face with both hands roughly. He needs a shave.

He needs a shave before he goes to see Stiles.

Derek nods and John’s lips quirk in a grateful smile.

  
  
  
  


Isaac is the one that escorts John out the door and says that Derek will be at the hospital bright and early in the morning. As soon as he shuts the door he turns on Derek and points at him with narrowed eyes.

“Do I need ta put ya unda surveillance?” Isaac hisses.

Derek looks down his nose at him. “One, you’re not my doctor. Two, no.”

“Ya dun even haf a docta here,” he reminds.

“Erica can be my doctor.”

“Erica is on maternity leave, then.”

Derek sighs and turns away from him. “I was out of my mind when it happened. I don’t even know what I did to myself.”

_(there was blood beneath his claws, blood in his mouth; was he fighting an enemy in a hallucinated flashback or was he trying for a quick exit, he doesn’t know he doesn’t know he doesn’t know)_

Isaac puts a hand on his shoulder and turns him around. Derek can’t quite meet his eyes because in truth he feels ashamed for the whole thing. He has a whole new team that depend on him now; the battlefield may be different but each beta is there to protect each other. As much as the Alpha takes care of the betas, they take care of him, as well.

“This week,” Isaac says, “come over and sleep at my place. I could use the company.”

Derek doesn’t have the fight in him anymore to say no. He doesn’t remember why he’s bluffing a weak hand.

He’s damaged and he doesn’t know why he’s acting so strong.

Derek’s mouth opens and closes a couple times.

Finally, he says, “I need help.”

 


	10. Chapter 10

Derek can't sleep. Every time he closes his eyes he sees a shell of a boy he knew in war, pale and sunken, cracked across the face. He'd reach out for him, touch his skeletal hand, and the boy would turn to dust.

"Tell me how you felt when they took me away," Stiles' voice would say right in his ear. Derek would turn, and there's nothing there. Then, at his other ear, "You took yourself away from me."

Derek opens his eyes when Isaac stands above him and shakes his shoulder gently. Its barely light outside, he notes, as he cranes his head to look at the window, and he smells bacon and eggs in the kitchen. He hears Erica humming to herself and feels a longing to see her.

He stands; sometime during the night he moved to the floor.

"Come have breakfast," Isaac says. "Afterwards you can take a shower and we'll go. Erica wanted to come with us."

Derek nods and follows him out of the bedroom. Erica pauses from pulling out the plates and stares at him, eyes watery.

"Morning," Derek says.

"You shit Alpha," she whispers, coming around the counter and hitting his chest over and over until she just puts her face at his neck to scent. Derek feels tears, but also can feel her mouth smiling.

"Boyd keeps asking about you. You should write to him," Erica says after a moment.

"I will." He will.

"You smell bad."

"I need a shower."

Her head rolls over his shoulder as she shakes her head. "Not dirty. Your wellbeing. Smells like..."

Derek understands, then.

He smells like death.

  
  
  
  
  
  


"So we found a therapist who speaks Polish," Isaac says as they enter the hospital. "Speaks almost everything you can think of, actually."

Derek nods. "That'll be good for Stiles." He glances around the halls. "How's Scott?"

"Angry at you but okay," Isaac says.

"We think he has a gal," Erica adds with a grin. "Covered in perfumes and a stupid smile."

Derek doesn’t know what to say that doesn’t sound condescending so he keeps quiet. He wants to tell Scott not to be stupid when it comes to love while keeping his lycanthropy a secret, but Derek doesn’t have much liable authority to stand on. He sighs and tells Erica, “Keep an eye on him.”

“Sure thing, Captain,” she says.

He stops walking when they enter the recovery ward, and suddenly his pulse races with anxiety. Derek can smell traces of Stiles where they stand, now, and its almost too much to take in at once when being gone for those weeks. He wants to see Stiles, but…

Erica loops her arm around his. “There ain’t nothin’ to eat you, baby,” she reassures in a gentler tone he’s known her to have and leads him into a walk. Derek’s lips thin, eyes on Isaac’s heels going ahead of them. “Now stop dilly dallying.”

"I shouldn't be here," he mutters.

"Fuck should," Erica barked. "The pack, the dad, and Stiles himself want you here. Lighten up, babydoll. Stop killing yourself over this."

The tacky phantom feeling of blood on his shirt, sticking to his skin, made Derek pull on his clothes to reassure himself he was clean.

No blood, no dust, no death.

  
  
  
  


Stiles sits with his hands in his lap, staring at the wall. Scott sits beside him, reading a Reader's Digest out loud. He stops when the pack enters the room, eyes catching on to Derek's and giving an acknowledging nod. He puts a hand on Stiles' arm.

"Derek is here, Stiles," Scott says. "Three weeks late, the asshole. Blink three times if you want me to kick him to the curb."

Stiles doesn't do anything. He's thinner and his face is void of emotion. He stinks of a battle lost, something like surrender.

Derek freezes, feeling gutted. He clutches Erica's hand on his arm still and says quietly, "I don't think I can do this."

Erica gives a reassuring squeeze but Scott frowns, disappointed and angry. "I'll probably kick his ass, anyway," he mutters darkly and makes to stand, but Stiles moves.

Stiles reaches up and grabs Scott's arm, pulls him to sit down again. Everyone looks at him with wide-eyed surprise.

Isaac kneels in front of Stiles, takes out and shines a small flashlight in his eyes. "Are you with us, Stiles? Blink twice for yes."

Nothing. There wasn't even a change in heart rate.

"Where's John?" Isaac asks Scott without looking away from Stiles, who continues to stare at the wall.

"He said he'll be back for lunch. The office called him."

Isaac nods and looks up at Derek. "Looks like yer stayin' for lunch."

  
  
  
  


One by one, the pack left him alone with Stiles. Isaac had appointments, Scott went to lunch, and Erica disappeared outside to walk in the gardens. She patted his arm and said, "Keep your shit together."

Easier said than done.

Derek paces nervously around Stiles before finally taking the seat next to him. He sighs shakily, runs a hand through his hair, and says, "I'm a sodding tit."

Stiles says nothing in return, of course.

After a few minutes of silence, Derek hesitantly lays his hand on Stiles'. He can't help but think, don't break as he does it, then pulls pain away.

Its all emotional ( _hopelessness and a startling deep-seated anger, desperation and an overwhelming sense of loneliness_ ), and the force of it makes Derek gasp softly. A lump forms in his throat, but he continues pulling the pain until there's only traces and Stiles is swaying slightly in his chair. His eyes flutter sleepily, content.

Derek stops pulling but doesn’t remove his hand.

Touching makes Derek self-aware of his skin in the most acute ways he’s never thought about: the pressure he’s holding; the warmth Stiles gives off; the friction between their hands; the small, minuscule muscle jumps; the curve that each of their resting hands take. Stiles’ hand is very thin but underneath his, Derek can’t see it exploding into dust.

Derek wraps his fingers around the top of Stiles’ hand tightly as he dares, as if to prove this fact to himself. Its firm, the bones are still strong, and--

and Stiles turns his hand over.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next time: awkward lunch with the parent.
> 
> I know this is shorter than normal, but I was really scraping for an idea, like whoa


	11. intermission: the curious insights of a very quiet young man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *WARNING* A more descriptive tale of Stiles' rape that was very, very vaguely hinted at in chapter one yet not explicit nor graphic.

There is a sanctuary in Hell with his father. A sanctuary where he finds himself blessed after so many months (that roll into a year, and then two,) that he’s able to spend a couple hours at night with his father.

He’s happy his father is being treated well.

Their shelter was a home and grave to nearly two hundred more people, give or take tens or the ones that passed in their sleep, or were transferred in and out. In and out. In and out. Never seen again. These people, especially the ones who slept so close to him and his father, the ones who shared their goods and finds, those that asked him to keep a secret-- these people were family.

He remembers specifically a Romanian girl, who didn’t understand a word he spoke in either language, smile prettily at him when he offered his moth-eaten rag they used as blankets during the cooler months. She was kind to him.

She died for him. Slapped a German’s hand when he was picking and choosing, how it seem to rest over him. She slapped that German’s hand, and that hand slapped her back and picked her up by the scruff of her scrawny neck.

His father didn’t understand why he cried so hard that night when he returned from the job, as he was refusing to speak but arms gesturing around their home and family. They didn’t know them, not really. _Why, why, why?_ When his sobs were at their peak, that same family that didn’t know them came close.

They hugged him, and cried with him.

He and his father had only been there for five months by that time. He didn’t understand why things happened the way they did.

After that, he finds it easy to strip his pajama-like (or potato sack, whichever came his way) clothing to the next person who needed it.

What is shame when there's nothing left to be ashamed of?

  
  
  


They threw him in with a soldier.

He didn't know what to expect after seeing hundreds of people, young and old, die and get killed. He didn't know if they did anything special with two-year residents of the camp because in their bunker, he and his father were the only ones to last so long. Some days, he avoided looks of hope ( _maybe we will be okay in the long run, mama!_ ) and understood the glares of anger and jealousy ( _if I had an inside job like your father, boy, I'd outlive this lot, too_ ).

One soldier got his attention, got him outside, and another knocked him out with a crack to the head. All in all, there wasn't anything ceremonious about the ordeal; sometimes life knows where to kick you in the head to remind you where you are.

There's a new soldier he's never seen, in a new place he's never been, this dirt beneath his skin feels too new. No urine or waste smells, no hint of sickness and dying odors.

There isn’t anyone else.

There isn’t any other prisoners.

This is what scares him most after realising he’s been separated from his father.

He’s always been one in a crowd, connected to someone who was of use to the Nazis, so maybe he had gotten it in his head that he was special. That no real harm could come to him, so of course the first thing he does when he meets the soldier is plead because he’s _scared_.

He hasn’t pleaded anything from any German before.

Then he learns quickly he’s mistaken the soldier as a soldier. The man is English, a prisoner just like he is, once a soldier or not because there are no ranks at camp; they’re all demoted of titles if they were anything high standing.

This man, Derek, isn’t family. So it means nothing of him to smudge truth when speaking with him. To be honest, he’s thinking he won’t be here long; he’ll get back to his father soon enough.

Right?

It doesn’t mean that he prefers seeing Derek being dragged away. He shouts at the soldiers in the way he used to in the bunker because they all knew him and his dad, gotten in their soft skin. These new Germans aren’t the same as the old; he gets a gun in his face for his efforts. A bullet scrapes his ear, leaves it burning.

These new Germans aren’t the same as the old; they look at him like they want him to beg for mercy.

He ends up begging for mercy, flat on his face and screaming and crying into the dirt. Places that are bloody that shouldn’t be. He can’t remember if he passed out, distorted his reality, or just screamed until they were finished.

These new Germans aren’t the same as the old; he wishes a whole new circle of Hell for them.

Derek’s unconscious when they throw him back in, the Germans gesturing to him to lock Derek back in place, and it still takes several hours for him to find his legs and balance again to drag the heavier man to the wall.

He has a habit of checking the injuries of his family when they happen to return, to save water and clean wounds. He’s surprised how much he actually missed this new prisoner in those empty hours to treat him like bunker family.

The raw lines of burned flesh are still smoking, but not because Derek was recently pulled off the table.

Its weird.

Its like watching an accident in reverse.

He’s not exactly scared, not entirely. There isn’t much to be afraid of when they’re caught by the same enemy.

  
  
  
  


Its when Derek wakes up. He notices the change of breathing and prompts him to full awareness; sleep is healing, but he’s see people not wake again. He’s seen people choose not to wake again.

Its when Derek puts a hand on his knee, and he will swear up and down that there was electricity in that one touch. Its when he feels a pleasant numbness in his backside and ear and legs and arms and everywhere else.

He doesn’t know what this is and puts himself in safe distance from the, as he learns moments later, werewolf.

Even the big bad wolf is in danger of the big bad evil, it makes him smile to himself, a little smug; _everyone is reduced to their lowest low_.

  
  
  


 

There’s not a lot after that he remembers until he wakes up in New York City, Home of the Brave.

And all that shit.

  
  
  
  
  


This is after all that, though. After beginning to know Derek and Scott and the bits of Isaac, Erica, and Boyd he’s seen. This is after Kate and her father who still lurks around trying to catch him when he’s _there_ in _reality_ , laughing how stupid he was to trust the wolves who have left him in a worse state. This is after he and his own father hug each other stupid and cry a lot.

There’s three of him now. One that lives daily in Germany, one that lives daily in altered dreams or nightmares, one that still kind of knows what’s going around him.

He doesn’t know how he can fit so many experiences in one body.

Many of times he wishes to choose not to wake up again because sometimes its just so much.

Then he hears his father’s voice talking to him, making sure he opens his eyes.

And he smiles to his mother and says, “Not yet.”

She smiles back, agreeing.

  
  
  
  


The thing is.

The thing is he knows Derek’s back. He can hear the nervous tittering, can feel the relief they both experience when Derek touches his hand and draws the pain.

He knows Derek is a mess. Derek has a hint of metal that he can smell when the werewolf sits next to him. He knows that smell anywhere. _He knows blood._

The thing is he’s still angry at Derek and, thus far, his lack of apology for disappearing. How could Derek not know that he needed him, practically constantly? Despite his large bunker family, the last month or two isolated with Derek made him dependant on him. They took care of each other in the end; did that mean nothing?

The thing is he knew it did mean something. Its why Derek’s a mess. He’s heard it from Scott, he’s overheard Isaac and his father talking. What he doesn’t understand is why Derek left him alone when they were in obvious need of each other.

He wants to scream and shout until his face is blue.

The thing is, though, he can’t; he’s so trapped within himself. His body runs on autopilot, storing information of what’s around him while the majority of his attention is in Germany. If not Germany, then a peaceful alternate reality.

He wishes he could speak when he grabbed Derek’s hand.

The thing is... he really wanted to say thank you for coming back.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Very funny thing. I said in the last note I was scrabbling for ideas yet this popped right from my fingers practically immediately after the posting. In the next chapter we'll get back to our normal programming.
> 
> Also, because this story is mainly in Derek's POV, things dealing through a very spastic and traumatized mind of Stiles never occur with his name. Its like... when you think about your life, you don't put your name in there, do you? Granted, it may sound better first person, but I have a general dislike writing first person.


	12. Chapter 12

Derek stays sitting with Stiles, their hands clasped, until John brings lunch back with him and, with a little guidance for Stiles, they go out into the gardens where there’s benches and tables. Erica comes to join them and Derek is pleased to see neither of them try to set him and Stiles at opposite sides.

John asks a few questions about Derek: how long he's truly been in America, if he plans to go back to London, has he a job, and if Derek wouldn't mind him being around. Derek was mildly ashamed by the last question.

"Of course not," Derek says quietly. "I didn't mean-- part of me is sorry that I kept you away for so long." _Especially since I left the first time._

John inclines his head. "I understand." He switches topics. "Will you be joining Stiles in therapy?"

Derek glances at Stiles, who is just staring at his food in front of him while Erica helps him eat by putting food against his lips, to prompt him to open his mouth, before answering. "It may be best to start separately."

To be honest, he hadn't even thought of group sessions, much less going to a therapist so soon. The thought unnerves Derek, to talk to someone about the war, reopening those experiences that he just wants to ignore. He doesn't know if he'll ever be mentally prepared for therapy, despite knowing he needs the release.

Erica is looking at him as if she can read his mind. She reaches over and squeezes his arm.

The day passes uneventfully. Gerard Argent is in the building, Derek can smell, but he keeps his distance either for his own choosing or because the smell of sickness is heavier than it was before. Derek hopes he’s dying painfully and doesn’t feel guilt thinking so, however wrong it is of him.

Derek ends up staying for the night, asking permission from John and the nurses. Scott sets up a cot in Stiles' room before he goes home for the day, and John leaves with him with a clap on Derek's shoulder.

"You won't run away in the night?" John tries to ask jokingly, but it comes out doubtful. Derek would be doubtful of himself, too.

"I promise," he says. Stiles is already laying down but not sleeping.

"Then I'll see you in the morning," John says. "Take care."

"Goodnight,” Derek responds and shuts the door behind him. He turns out the light and starts for bed until he hears Stiles’ breathing quicken, and the werewolf turns on the lights again. He watches the young man and how he visibly relaxes, and Derek leaves the light on for the night.

There are two periodic checks throughout the night from shift aids who help Stiles to the bathroom. Derek doesn’t get much sleep that night, and judging by how dark Stiles’ eyes look he’s in the same boat.

  
  
  


Morning comes too early. Derek rolls away from the window to chase sleep that barely grasped him during the night, but his mind begins racing with awareness; Stiles’ resting breaths, and the sound of Isaac and John’s footsteps coming down the hall. From far away Derek can smell breakfast being prepared for the patients.

Derek sighs and rubs his hands against his face before sitting up and looking at Stiles. It seems cruel to wake him, but he knows its for the best that he eat something for breakfast. Laying a hand on Stiles’ ankle, Derek sucks out emotional pain, then shakes him gently.

“It’s time to wake up. Your dad is coming, and we’re going to have breakfast,” Derek tells him in a soft voice, and feels the need to clarify, “All of us are having breakfast. If you’ll let me join you.”

Stiles eyes open slowly and he makes brief eye contact before they flit away. Derek takes it, and helps Stiles to stand as the door opens to John and Isaac.

“Good morning,” they both say. John steps forward and gestures for Derek to let him take care of Stiles’ personal needs, and he nods gratefully.

"I scheduled you an appointment with Dr. Martin," Isaac says as a greeting to Derek.

Derek frowns. "When?" He doesn't decline, however.

"One-thirty." He grins when his alpha growls. "I told her it'll be a light session, nothing deep."

"You don't think you should have warned me first?"

"This is your warning. The sooner the better, pal." He adds more seriously, "I'm helping you. When would you decide to go?"

"At my own choosing," Derek grumbles, running a hand through his hair. His other hand mirrors the movement a moment later in a nervous tic. "Maybe next week, maybe next month."

"One-thirty," Isaac nods. "I'm also warning you she's rather...abrasive? Unique? She might be psychic, too." He says it so flippantly that Derek raises an eyebrow.

"Psychic," he repeats, deadpanned. “What nonsense that is,” Derek says with an eye roll when his beta nods again.

Isaac shrugs. “Go to the session. Fifteen minutes at most. Completely free. You can see for yourself.” He puts his hands in his pockets and suddenly his eyes light up. Isaac pulls out a square envelope and hands it to Derek.

“Argent’s granddaughter gave this to me to give to you,” he says. “She didn’t seem to understand what it is, so I’m assuming it’s Gerard passing notes.”

Derek snorts as he takes the envelope and opens it.

It reads:

_I’m a dying man. I have three months left minimum. Give me the bite._

And Derek shreds it with a quick flash of claws. At Isaac’s confusion, he says, “Advertisement.”


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> INTRODUCING THE BEAUTIFUL LYDIA MARTIN~~~

At 1:20PM, Derek is sitting outside a clinic office still connected with the hospital. Other than the receptionist, he’s the only one there; there’s only Dr. Martin’s heartbeat inside her office, perfectly at ease and completely the opposite of how he feels.

Before coming here he was able to eat breakfast and lunch with Stiles, sit next to him, speak quietly in his ear about the weather that made Derek feel awkward; he’s never liked small talk. He spoke more freely when Erica and Scott were away, Stiles’s father gone to work. Derek spoke of the shameful act of leaving to London, how he met John, but couldn’t dare utter the reason why he returned, about the girl.

Ten minutes later, the door opens and a short, redheaded woman appears. “Derek?” She has a Irish accent, from the north.

He nods as he stands and she guides him inside, closing the door behind them. “Please, call me Lydia while we’re here; I found it better to converse with my patients without them constantly reminded I’m a doctor.” Dr. Martin turns to face him. “Pleased to meet you,” Lydia smiles, but it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. She does, however, hold out a hand which Derek takes.

She doesn’t shake his hand, though. Lydia has gone frozen stiff at the first touch.

“Lydia?” Derek asks, wary. Her grip tightens and her gaze becomes unfocused.

After a moment she moves again, and does shake his hand. “Pardon, I get lost in thought sometimes,” she says with a forced laugh. It’s a true statement, but there’s something more that needs telling. Lydia lets go rather quickly and clasps her hands together.

“Tell me about yourself, Mr. Hale," she prompts, taking a seat behind the desk as she gestures for Derek to sit on the sofa.

"What do you know already?" Derek returns.

Lydia smiles a little more, amused. "Whatever Dr. Lahey has given me."

"Which is?"

"War vet with PTSD, social skills of a bear, dependency issues, and a part-time alcoholic. What's your favorite drink?"

"I don't drink that much."

"Denial," she says, waving a hand dismissively. "Now that I've mentioned it, you'll notice. What's your favorite drink?"

Derek shrugs. "Doesn't matter to me."

"Where did you go to school?"

"I was a home student until secondary school."

"Who taught you?"

Derek stares at her for a long moment. "Why is this relevant?"

"I want to get to know who you are, know your speech patterns and your tendencies of twisting the truth," Lydia responds.

“How would you know I'm twisting the truth?"

"I saw your life," she says without missing a beat.

Derek sits up straighter, wondering if his ears deceived him. "What?"

She smiles again. "You haven't heard? They say I'm psychic."

She’s being deceptive on purpose, he can feel it, and it annoys him. It takes him a moment to clear his throat and stare her down, asking in a no-nonsense tone, "What are you, really?"

“Really? A banshee,” she says, still flippant, as if talking about herself is more boring than dull itself. “I scream when death is near and hear voices of the dead.”

Derek continues to stares. He knew of banshees, living on the Isles, but they were bedtime stories. “And you’re able to see my life?”

“With a touch,” Lydia nods, and she lifts her hand to wiggle her fingers at him. “Not the future or anything, since I’m not actually psychic, just the background history.”

“That must be quite the business card,” he mocks.

Lydia’s smile widens, amused. “I couldn’t place anymore _official_ titles without losing my license. ‘Full-time therapist, part-time seance practitioner.’”

Derek is silent for a moment before he says, daring, “Prove it.”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not a side show, Mr. Hale; you would know, you’re a werewolf. Most of your family was. A plentiful family pack of eleven others. And your sister,” she tuts, “Laura, quite the family gossiper. She says you’ve been avoiding therapy for over a year now, that’s too bad.”

The leather sofa beneath his hands rips open unexpectedly, loudly, his claws dug in deep. When he speaks, his voice is a growl, “Shut up.”

“You asked, Derek,” she says, unaffected by his display. “I provided, but you’re right. Let’s move on; we’re here about you, remember?”

Derek sneers. “What can you help me with, you know everything about me and my problems.”

She levels him with a stare of her own, green eyes hard and unforgiving. “That’s what you’re supposed to tell me.”

 

 

The fifteen minutes were a waste, Derek decides angrily as he marches out of the clinic after the session is over, down to the last second. He tells Erica this when he sees her, hovering around Scott and Stiles.

“It’s not going to magically make your problems disappear,” Scott says instead. Erica nods in agreement. Stiles doesn’t say or do anything.

“I don’t understand what the point is, then,” Derek gruffs. “I tell her my trauma — which she already knows — and what’s supposed to happen? A sudden let go of all my anxiety and other problems? What is the point of therapy, honestly?”

Erica looks at him with an unimpressed stare that could rival Dr. Martin’s. “Before I was turned,” she says, quiet to not attract attention, “I suffered from seizures when I was younger. My parents were poor, and a cheesy doctor convinced them electroshock therapy would do the trick.” Derek’s mouth snaps closed, a numb effect making his limbs tingle uncomfortably. “They allowed the doctor to work his magic, when they felt worry enough to take me.” He understands what she means, she had crappy parents.

“I entered myself into therapy,” she says with a sigh. “I wouldn’t be able to chat about it so casually without help. Talking to someone helped manage my resentment and gained self-worth.”

“I’m sorry,” Derek says, but she only shrugs.

“It happens.”

Scott stands where he’s crouched next to Stiles and gives her a hug, and Erica lets out a soft laugh against his hair.

 

 

_SSG Vernon Boyd,_

_Your girl is doing fine. I can hear the baby’s heartbeat and it’s healthy. You’re a very lucky man, luckier if you can come home soon to be with them. Until then, Isaac is taking Erica dancing on weekends and making sure she’s following her appointments — not that she’d forget, but Isaac’s just as excited for the baby as everyone else. I am, too._

_DH_

 

_Derek Hale,_

_I was honestly surprised to receive your letter._

_I am a lucky man. Erica sends me letters frequently about her appointments, her weight and sizes. Words can’t express my longing to be with them again._

_Erica also writes about you all, I should tell you, in detail. Scott seems to be fitting in nicely with the pack, and I hear he’s captured someone’s affections? I hope he’s happy with her. You can inform Isaac that, despite knowing he’ll keep his hands where they belong, I’m jealous I’m not able to take Erica dancing myself. I’m also aware Isaac’s been taking care of you, as you’ve become unstable. I don’t understand what’s happened, or why you would have separated yourself from your anchor, but to each their own mysteries._

_It’s good to hear from you, Derek. I have faith you can be a great Alpha. I hope you get better. You and Stiles._

_VB_

 

 

Derek slowly sets down Boyd’s response on the table, going over his words. He reaches for his tumbler of spiked whiskey before he stands and goes to his window, looking over the nightlife of New York without actually seeing it. He sips occasionally, thinking about what Boyd called Stiles.

His anchor.

Derek feels like he can readily accept Stiles as such; he doesn’t have a choice as to what his wolf mentality will latch to, but at least it makes sense. He would have switched anchors during their time in the camp, needing Stiles safe in their shelter to be okay during those months. It’s the first physical anchor he’s had since his father, when he was a child.

He’s disrupted from his thoughts from a loud knock at the door, and Derek sniffs the air. It’s Scott.

“Come in.”

Scott opens the door and peeks in. “Hey,” he says as he closes the door behind him, “Isaac wanted me to check on you. He’s getting swamped in the ER. You doing okay?” He seems to gesture to the drink in his hand more than anything.

Derek glances at his drink. “I’m fine. Not even buzzed, and probably not going to drink anymore than this.”

“Well that’s good,” he says. “Isaac also mentioned you’re not staying with him as much as he’d like.”

“Isaac also thinks I need to be on suicide watch,” he responds tightly with an eyeroll. When Scott seems like he’s about to agree, Derek quickly says, “I appreciate the visit, though. How was Stiles today? Did his father stop by?”

Scott nods. “John came by after lunch and stayed until after dinner. Stiles is the same,” he answers, tone bitter, and Derek can’t find it in himself to think Scott’s wrong in his anger. Because it was wrong. It was damaging and it was wrong what Derek did.

Derek sighs and changes topic again. “I’ve been hearing you’ve got your sights on a girl.” He still wants to chastise him about putting his first anchor on a person, very likely human, but Derek isn’t someone to take orders from currently. It piques his interest however when Scott winces.

“You’ve heard, huh? I knew you’d find out eventually,” Scott mutters. He looks at him with pleading eyes. “Please don’t make me stop seeing her, Derek! I don’t even think I could if I tried, Allison is nice and nothing like the rest of them, I swear it! She knows about us, and she’s wonderful to me!”

“What are you talking about — nothing like them? Knows about —” Derek stops himself, eyes widening in realization. “She’s part of that hunter family,” he says, more to himself than Scott. He stares at his beta, disbelieving, and quickly the anger builds. “Did you _forget_ somehow that you almost _died_ by that family’s hands, Scott?! You bloody idiot!”

Derek throws his tumbler, and it smashes against the wall. Scott flinches but doesn’t back down from Derek’s fury. “She’s not like them! Her and her father are not like Kate and Gerard! They have a code!”

“All hunters have a sodding code!” Derek yells. “It’s what justifies their actions to kill us all!”

Scott shakes his head, “You’re wrong! Their code is nothing like that! Allison and her dad disagree with everything Gerard and Kate have done!”

“Did you tell her how you became a bloody werewolf, Scott? Does she know about what Kate did?” At Scott’s silence, his lips thinning, Derek smirks without humor. “You’re too polite, not wanting to shame her. If they’ve let go of them as you say, your Allison wouldn’t see them as family and she’d feel no shame to her name. She’d be as angry as the rest of us that Kate and Argent would have no qualms to kill an innocent human.

“You’re damning your pack by seeing her,” Derek says. “All I know is what you’ve told me, and all I know is that she’s using a story to help Argent.”

_“She didn’t seem to understand what it is…”_

Derek shakes his head to clear Isaac’s voice, and at the same time Scott raises his chin. “I’ll prove it to you. I’ll prove Allison’s good.”

“You’ll get yourself killed,” Derek growls, eyes flashing red for the first time in forever.

“I know I’m right, Derek,” he says softly, as if he’s trying to calm an animal. “I’ll take that chance.” And before Derek has the chance to find something else to throw, Scott leaves, quietly shutting the door behind him. It’s the gentleness that sets off Derek. He stomps to the kitchen, crunching broken glass beneath his shoes, and pulls out another tumbler.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all don't know how happy the 'Banshee Powers' tag makes me. Like, Banshee Lydia makes me happy enough, but Banshee Lydia using AWESOME BANSHEE POWERS makes me gleeful~ And I feel like I can take liberty to create what those powers are~
> 
> Also, I very belatedly realised that correspondences into the military are sometimes read (usually read during war time). If I had remembered, Derek and Boyd wouldn't be talking about werewolves so freely in their letters. Whoops.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everything is HAPPY. You all can rejoice now.  
> Two chapters in one day? I'm on a rolllll~

Derek wakes up on the floor in confusion when the phone rings. He doesn’t remember going to the space between the bed and the wall during the night. Grumbling some, Derek pushes himself up and stumbles slightly into the living area.

“Hello?” he answers gruffly. He glances at the wall clock; it reads just after two in the morning.

“ _It’s Isaac_ ,” comes the quick response, “ _We need you here immediately, it’s Stiles_ —”

Instantly alert, Derek asks interrupts, “What is it? What’s happened?”

“ _He’s started screaming for no reason, Derek. The nurses want to sedate him, but I haven’t passed the order yet. I want you and John to come down here and see if you can calm him_.”

“I’m on my way.”

 

 

Isaac meets him in the parking lot, patient chart in hand, and he talks as they briskly walk into the hospital. Using his hearing abilities, Derek can hear Stiles scream. He sounds frightened. “Everythin’s been normal today, no responses, no pesterin’ from Argent. He took ‘is meds and John came by and left ‘bout nine. The aids say they ‘ad jus’ been with ‘im when he started. I tried talkin’ ta ‘im, but he’s not responding. John will be ‘ere in ‘bout ten minutes.”

Derek nods as they rush into the rehab ward, Stiles’ screaming almost deafening to his ears now, however hoarse it’s become, and he notices the crowd of nurses and other staff and wakened patients hovering around Stiles’ room. Isaac uses his authority to tell them to get over the way and demands the staff help the patients back into bed, this is a private matter and doesn’t deserve their gossiping.

Isaac’s the one to shut the door behind them, pointedly telling a nurse that should they need her assistance he’d let her know. Derek stares at Stiles, screaming and flailing against bed restraints. He growls and rushes forward, slicing all four cleanly through.

“They’ve _restrained_ him?” Derek asks Isaac, voice high in disbelief, as he tries to hold down Stiles’ arms from hitting anyone in the face. He glances over his shoulder where Isaac has the decency to look at least a tiny bit guilty.

“The nurses had no choice,” he answers loudly to talk above Stiles’ fit. “The aids say he threw himself out of bed the first couple times; it’s been used for his own safety only!”

Derek focuses back on Stiles, who stops for a moment to pant for breath, red in the face and eyes wild. Derek would have thought he’s in the throws of a night terror if he wasn’t so obviously awake. He stinks of fear.

“Stiles,” Derek says. When Stiles’ eyes slide on him it’s like he’s looking through him, and it scares Derek, before looking elsewhere. “Stiles, snap out of it! You’re okay, you’re safe!” Stiles makes an agonizing whine in the back of his throat, eyes welling with tears and his chest heaves with sobs. He inhales deeply and begins screaming again. “Stiles!” Derek tries again fruitlessly. He catches his hands, and immediately pulls panic from Stiles

Stiles wrenches his hands out of his grip, but then his hands fly back and squeezes Derek’s tightly, trembling. Their arms rise with speed, and Derek thinks for a second he’s about to get hit, but Stiles only uses their hands to hold Derek’s face. He stops screaming, but still sounds distressed as all get out. His limbs have stopped flailing, though.

John pushes through the door, stopping at the sight of them. “What’s happened to my son?” he demands from Isaac.

“I’m not sure, it’s some kind of panic attack,” Isaac rushes. “No one knows what set it off.”

John comes close, doesn’t push Derek out of the way thankfully (he should, he has every right), and puts his hand on Stiles’ forehead. “Stiles, can you hear me? _Stanisław to ja. Tata. Słyszysz mnie_?” Derek recognises the sound of Stiles’ real name and ‘dad’, but everything else is lost on him.

Stiles stops abruptly, shocking everyone. Then—

“ _T-tata_?”

“No way,” Isaac breathes from behind them. Derek stares down at Stiles, heart pounding, as Stiles looks from his father to him. With recognition. Derek’s positive he’s stopped breathing at this point.

“ _S-superwilk_.” A breath shudders out of him. “Der… Derek.”

Derek doesn’t feel awkward about shedding a couple tears since everyone else is. Stiles cries too, even as he palms Derek’s tears away.

 

 

Two months and three days; Stiles says he doesn’t remember most of days when his condition worsened. He remembers the start, where depression started when Derek disappeared and the mix of realities when his anxiety took a turn for the worse. He says a couple days here and there popped up in his awareness, like Derek returning or a time Scott read a comic book to him and made amusing sound effects, and once his father getting into an argument with a nurse about his medicine.

“Is there any more?” Lydia asks Stiles, then prompts in Polish, “ _Coś jeszcze_?”

Derek and John sit in Stiles’ session because Stiles hasn’t let them out of his sight since he became aware the night before, and Isaac quickly jumped on the chance to ask Stiles if he wouldn’t mind seeing the therapist first thing after breakfast. Stiles agreed. During the rest of the early morning, no one was able to get anymore sleep, and it was a good thing or else they would have only noticed later that Stiles was almost solely speaking Polish. When John asked him why, he’d translated back to Derek rather hesitantly, “He says it’s to spite you, and because it’s also a reality check.”

“Reality check?” Derek had asked, ignoring the former comment. He had remembered how angry Stiles looked, the last day he’d left him.

John nodded, glancing at his son. “He’s not too convinced this is real. If you start to understand Polish, he says, he’ll know it’s not real.” Stiles nodded.

Other than the dialect, Stiles acts how Derek remembered in the camp ( _curious, sarcastic, strong-willed_ ), but… so much _brighter_. It’s a complete 180 that makes Derek’s head spin by the obvious difference at what was missing. He’s expressive and animated, a glow to his eyes that Derek only had glimpses of beforehand, and he doesn’t smell like he’s dying anymore. Stiles still smells like medicine and sickness, still looks too sunken and skinny, but he’s not actively dying. His appetite needs work, though.

In the therapy room, Derek uses Stiles’ father as a translator. As Stiles answers Lydia’s questions, John would speak a moment after his son did. “’Nothing much worth telling’,” he translates, quietly as to not disturb the session.

“What can you tell me about last night? _Co się stało ostatniej nocy_?”

“’I was in my safe world until the lights went out’,” John says to Derek. “’My safe world disappeared all of a sudden, and I went immediately into the next default. Germany.’” He pauses, listening before continuing, “’I was scared. I was in Germany again without Dad or…’ why does he keep calling you ‘super wolf’?” John asks quietly, glancing at Derek. “He uses it like a title, but also kind of sarcastically.”

“Long story,” Derek returns, slightly impatient, eyes never leaving Stiles.

“Later, then,” the man says, definite, before finishing the translation. “’…without Dad or Super Wolf, and bad memories returned or were created.’”

Lydia hums thoughtfully and writes something down, then asks, “How were you able to come out of Germany? _Jak wróciłeś_?”

Stiles grins slightly, raising his hands to wriggle his fingers at her, and he answers while John says, with confusion, “’ _Werewolf magic_ ’? Honestly, what?”

“Later,” Derek whispers, short, because Stiles is still talking.

John sighs, crosses his arms and continues, “’Werewolf magic and the fact my dad was in the same room as Super Wolf. They hadn’t met in Germany, so I kind of used that as an escape rope. The Polish helped, I think. It reminds me…’” John swallows. “’It reminds me of Mom and, at that moment, Mom meant safety. It still feels safer to use it.’”

Lydia nods. “Do you think you’ll relapse? _Jak blisko są Niemcy_?”

Stiles turns his eyes on Derek, and Derek doesn’t need John translation when they speak. He understands perfectly.

“’It’s still there. It’ll be there until I’m well again.’”

 

 

Derek finds out that one of the night shift aids is new and had turned out the light when she left Stiles’ room. He doesn’t know whether he should scold her for thoughtlessness or praise her for bringing Stiles back to them.

 

 

Word travels fast on the hospital grapevine. Soon there are patients and staff alike coming to visit Stiles in his room where the three of them are trying to nap through the afternoon. Erica makes her way through them, though, and there’s an aid behind her, asking if she should put up a DO NOT DISTURB ticket on the door.

“Please,” John says gratefully as Erica climbs over his and Derek’s cot to sit on the edge of Stiles’ bed. It won’t matter to Derek; he’ll be able to hear those who slow by at the door and whisper things.

“Nice to finally meet you proper, Stiles,” she says.

He smiles at her. “Erica. I never said thanks for helping Scott, back then,” he says, because he’s speaking English to everyone else. Derek frowns.

Erica laughs. “That was mostly Derek and Isaac,” she says, pushing her Alpha gently with her foot. “Boyd and I just came in last minute and…” she glances at John, “…gave a little kick.”

John notices her hesitation and stares Derek down, eyebrow lifting. “I feel this has something related to ‘later’. Care to fill me in, now?” It’s more of an order and kind of intimidating, and Derek thinks the man’s talent is wasted in printing rather than interrogation.

“ _Mnie_ , _mnie_!” Stiles says excitedly and leans dramatically closer, completely ignoring Derek. “ _Wilkołak_ ,” he says in a conspicuous whisper. His eyebrows even waggle. His father stares at him a long moment.

“What?”

“ _Wilkołak_ ,” Stiles repeats, louder with a grin. Derek rolls his eyes, dropping down against his cot. Let it be known that Stiles is actually a child. Though, he thinks idly, he rather deal with a childish attitude than nothing at all.

“English, son. I’m having trouble translating that one correctly; you can’t be saying what I think you are.”

Erica nudges Derek with her foot again, “Why is he speaking Polish?”

“Because he’s angry at me and I don’t understand Polish, but he knows I know _wilkołak_.” Derek sighs and looks at John, not bothering to sit up again. There’s two ways the man will take the news, neither he feels inclined to stand for. “You’re not mishearing anything. He’s saying werewolf.” He allows his eyes to bleed red, and in a flash John pushes away from his cot and stands at the far side of the room.

“Jesus Christ,” he mutters, and glances to Erica who’s own eyes are glowing gold. “Jesus Christ,” he says again, “how?”

Derek shrugs and blinks the color away. “I was born this way.”

“I was bitten,” Erica adds. “Not by Derek, and neither were Vernon and Isaac.”

John stares some more. “Isaac? Doctor Lahey? He’s a werewolf, too?” He pauses, obviously trying to understand it all in one go. “The doctor treating my son is a werewolf?” Stiles speaks up again, warily, in Polish that Derek doesn’t bother listening to, because he can guess what Stiles says by his father’s enraged reaction. “No, I’m not okay! Werewolves, Stiles! How are _you_ okay with this, for God’s sake!?”

“Because I’ve learned to need one,” Stiles says firmly, surprisingly in English, as he stands on Derek’s cot and points at the Alpha. John freezes at the mention. “Fucking Nazis thought he would kill me, Dad. Big bad wolf and all, right? Right out of the ballpark with that one. They have humanity.” He glances at Derek. “He saved me.”

Erica raises her hand. “Vernon and I helped with that, too.”

Stiles spins on her, intense speech broken with an excited, “Really? How?”

“We’re Army, baby doll,” she says with a wink. “My team and others infiltrated the camp. Vernon was my captain, and I’m the medic that kept your asses alive.”

“With ‘werewolf magic’?” John asks, dazed.

Erica smiles. “That and the skills I learned from training.”

“Huh,” he says, and is silent for a few moments while he processes everything. Finally, he sighs and slowly shuffles back to his cot and sits on it as he looks at Derek. “I’m still thrown. I’m still _very_ uncomfortable with this, but Stiles makes a compelling point I can’t ignore.” John runs a hand over his tired face. “I hope you don’t mind questions because I’m going to be asking _a lot_ of them.”

Derek releases a breath he didn’t realise he was holding. That ended better than he expected, to be honest. “I’m okay with that.”

“Good,” John nods. “But not now because I’m going to sleep. I’m beat.” He points at Stiles. “You need to go to sleep before dinner. I don’t want to hear about you skipping anymore meals, got it?”

Stiles shrugs as settles back on his bed. “ _Dobrze_.”

 

 

 

Erica shares Derek’s cot, and it’s the first time in over six years that Derek’s shared sleeping space with another werewolf; Isaac let him use the guest room when he stayed at his house, wary of Derek needing personal space. She lies on her side, curled in toward Derek, her outside arm cradling her eight-week belly. Derek sniffs her, relaxing at the sweet scent of pregnancy and her content. She smells like his Aunt Olivia; he remembers her best when she was pregnant with Eliza, Derek’s youngest cousin.

“You’re allowed to be near me,” Erica whispers between them, her eyes still closed. “Scenting from afar is baloney.”

Derek scoots over at her permission and bows his head over her’s, breathing her in and rubbing his face in her hair. He smells Isaac and Scott and Stiles. Erica smells like pack, and Derek sighs and is lulled into sleep by the sound of constant heartbeats.

It feels like only minutes later when Derek jolts awake because Scott enters the room, closing the door quietly behind them. Derek wonders if Isaac told him, too, but Scott doesn’t seem expectant of anything new. Instead, Scott looks over them and catches Derek’s eye. They have a stare-down, their last conversation still fresh in mind. But when he beckons his beta over with jerk of his head, Scott follows, careful where he steps. He slips in behind Erica and buries his face between her shoulders.

“I just started my shift,” Scott whispers. “I shouldn’t be lying down on the job.”

“There’s a ticket on the door, the staff won’t bother us,” Derek excuses. Curious, he asks, “Did Isaac stop by or anything?”

Scott hums. “He left a note on my locker saying there was a surprise, but I can wait until everyone’s done sleeping.”

Above them, on the bed, Stiles sighs loudly. “No one’s going to get any sleep with all this talking, Scott.”

Derek rolls his eyes when Scott screams in surprise.

His anchor, the child, everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stanisław to ja. Tata. Słyszysz mnie - Stanisław it's me. Dad. Can you hear me?  
> Superwilk - superwolf, a play on Sourwolf. ;D  
> Coś jeszcze? - Anything else?  
> Co się stało ostatniej nocy? - What happened last night?  
> Jak wróciłeś? - How did you return?  
> ak blisko są Niemcy? - How far is Germany? (literally, 'How close are the Germans?')  
> Dobrze - All right (sure, okay).
> 
>  
> 
> Polish was beta-approved by the most excellent and lovely [Margot](http://hales-emissary.tumblr.com/)~ Which you can find her [here](http://hales-emissary.tumblr.com/), on her [tumblr](http://hales-emissary.tumblr.com/)~ Here's the [link one more time in case you missed it](http://hales-emissary.tumblr.com/)~
> 
> Also, I'm not going to tag 'restraints' in case of triggers when they were used in a proper and safe way. Unlike now (where (at least in my state) you need permission from the State Board of Nursing and the patient doctor's consent), restraints were used freely in those times, especially in rotten hospitals to punish patients, but Isaac is a good doctor in a well-known hospital. Restraining Stiles from violent movement to protect himself and others was the right decision.

**Author's Note:**

> I hail from this [tumblr~](http://www.iblameitonmyadhd.tumblr.com)


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